How we participated in the hackathon

My colleagues from Microsoft are preparing to implement one very interesting project for the educational organization of the city of Moscow. Therefore, we are actively studying and getting involved in educational initiatives.

And so, as part of the search for new progressive ideas for the educational system of the Russian Federation, on September 5-6 this year, an international IT marathon was held to create innovative educational products called HACKATON EDHACKOUT 2015 . The task of the event is to create a creative concept of the National Open Educational Platform, to try yourself in building the future of our national education. Young and creative were invited to participate.

I no longer consider myself young, but there is still a little creativity left. Therefore, when Anna Epischeva ,Alexander Arakelyan and Alexander Shukevich invited me to the team - I agreed. Firstly, this is related to the project with the Moscow Department of Education. Secondly, we are participants in the future project team, and it would be nice to go through grinding in a combat situation. And thirdly, I already heard about the mysterious word “hackathon,” but I didn’t take part personally, and it was interesting to look at the whole thing from the inside.

Initially, the Hackathon (hackathon, from hack + marathon) is a developers forum during which specialists from different areas of software development (programmers, designers, managers) work together to solve a problem. Today, hackathons are no longer hacking, they are just programming marathons. Hackathons usually last from one day to a week.

Since the essence of the event boiled down to brainstorming in the field of online training, the term hackathon is quite appropriate. And so, when all of Moscow celebrated the city’s day, we worked, creative, presented, created, in general, hackathons and got all kinds of fans. About twenty-five teams were assembled, mainly from students from various institutes. The first day was devoted to the generation of new ideas in teams, the second - to their correct presentation to the jury.

What have I learned from the event?

The first one . I remembered that students were the coolest time in my life. You can do almost everything already, but practically nothing is required of you, except for study.

Second. I liked the idea search algorithm. At first, the audience and its needs are described in sufficient detail, we understand who this person is, where he lives, what he does, what he wants, what his needs, what he needs (in our case, this was Lyosha's student, student 11A grade , the leader of the Dota game team, can’t imagine himself without a PC and feels increasing pressure from the society around him, who wants Lesha to make his life choice and the choice of institute for admission).

But in order to feel the target audience, we were engaged in digging up the situations of our hero to the fourth level: a person in a specific situation in a particular place -> what is he doing? -> how does he do it? -> with what? -> fixing the conflict in the form of a phrase. For example, our hero Lesha does not want to continue to do physics -> he watches a series -> on a turbofilm -> Mr. Robot–> "a cool series, but I don’t understand half the words." Thus, thinking through the story takes place to the smallest detail. And then you come up with the idea of ​​how to use the identified issues in favor of the educational platform.

The third . One of the modules of our community management training has this phrase: “The way you publish is almost as important as the fact thatyou publish. ” That is, there are certain rules of behavior and presentation of information in communities and social networks. The rules are aimed at making your message heard, understood and you and each other understand each other. So, in the field of generating ideas, this statement can be transformed into the following: “It is almost as difficult to correctly present an idea as to create it.” If a brilliant idea was born in your head, this does not mean that you can infect other people with it. Finding the right words, form, presentation logic, understandable images, creating a presentation is a very important and very difficult part of the work. We did this all the second day.

Fourth . Corporate social network is a good platform for holding a hackathon. I remember the story that happened in the companyGrundfos . As part of the talented employees development program, an event was planned in advance for six months to meet with management. But due to the high cost of the event was canceled and invited the organizers to find a cheap virtual alternative. As a result, the global event was held within 48 hours in a closed group on the Yammer corporate social network. Teams received instruction, solved tasks, held meetings, meetings with leaders, conducted a question and answer session. In total, the event was attended by employees from 55 countries. As a result, Grundfos executives rated the event as extremely effective and offered to disclose the results for the entire company, which was done.

And the last one . I really liked the hackathon, thanksorganizers, curators and jury ! I suggest holding a virtual hackathon with the involvement of regional participants. With the choice of platform - we will help.

PS Our work: part 1 and part 2 .

Vladimir Ivanitsa Facebook | LinkedIn