The world’s first Hackathon might have happened in 1999, in Calgary, Canada. It was a corporate event. Days later another hackathon challenge was hosted by Sun Microsystems, challenging developers to write a new personal digital assistant.
Hackathons since then have been an integral part of the tech world. The process of congregating developers to see if any executable and scalable solutions can be found is now a practice that many organizations follow.
Hackathons have mostly been corporate. With the inclusion of hackathons at the university/college level, we now distinguish as Student Hackathon and Corporate Hackathon.
Corporate hackathons have two categories in them, internal and external hackathons.
Internal hackathons are created by an organization for its own developers. This may be to crowd source solutions within the organization or even find intrapreneurs. This will usually be a 24-48 hours event, sometimes multiple departments can participate. This is the kind of format that is usually great for identifying talent and positive collaboration.
External Hackathons are organized for developers everywhere, not just from the organization. External hackathons are usually one of the main events of many tech organizations.
External corporate hackathons are not just solution-oriented, they also result in scouting talent, test an organization’s product (asking developers to build solutions using their product’s api), create awareness around the organization and many more.
i4c through its Industry Innovation programs co-hosts corporate hackathons. i4c has been trusted by global brands Binance and JDRF for running their hackathons.
In most large organizations, innovation is difficult because of rigid structures, hierarchies, and fixed processes. Corporate hackathons break this monotony, which is exciting for engineers. It creates a space for creativity, experimentation, and collaboration.
Enginners are innovative, it is in their job description. For hours, every day, they sit and write logic. Corporate hackathon derives its thrill from challenges, a problem statement is given and in 24-48 hours, an effective solution needs to be presented, an MVP needs to be created and shown.
Corporate hackathons flip the mindset of everyday work, it is a safe space to take risks, test bold ideas, use new technologies and fail fast, all without repercussions. Corporate hackathons rewards curiosity.
Initially, what started as a crowd sourcing of solutions in exchange of prize money, recognition and technical credibility, corporate hackathons have come a long way. Corporate hackathons, today, are not a two-party stakeholder (the organization and the participants), we also have sponsors. It is the responsibility of the organization conducting the hackathon to provide value to all stakeholders.
Hosting a hackathon presents an opportunity to:
Participation offers an opportunity to:
The sponsorship offers an opportunity to:
The biggest success of a hackathon is piloting projects. Piloting projects are associated with impressive innovation, revenue generation, internal usage, and more. Here are some projects that have been piloted from hackathons.
# | Corporate hackathon (host) | Project Team/Name | Exactly implemented / what the company did next |
1 | Airtel — Airtel IQ Hackathon | Green Receipt | Green receipt was offered to work with Airtel’s product engineering team, GTM and potential funding from Airtel accelerator. |
2 | HDFC Life — HackInsure | Lumiq | HDFC would be working with Lumiq for their Generative AI hyper personalization solution for Life Insurance. |
3 | Flipkart — Flipkart Hackday | Notification Service | Flipkart has implemented a notification service through its internal hackathons. |
4 | Pinterest — Makeathon | AI document search chatbot | Pinterest with the rise of AI had an internal hackathon that led to an AI document search chatbot adopted for internal use. |
5 | Microsoft Bay Area Science Fair | Intelligent Construction Portal | The internal hackathon led to the implementation of the Intelligent Construction Portal in the AEC industry, starting with Fluor. |
These are only some pilot projects which have been taken up or implemented amongst thousands through. These solutions are not one off but also create competition.
The main sponsors can get teams to develop solutions on their platforms. This is great because teams will get to experience the sponsor’s platform, get feedback and also generate leads. This also leads to product adoption in other organizations.
The corporate hackathon ecosystem in India is a powerful catalyst in the IT industry, because informal coding events have matured into outcome-driven programs for technology adoption.
Hackathons like TCS AI Hackathon and Infosys Global Hackathon have become incubators to solutions which are close to enterprise ready. These platforms allow these solutions to be tested in low-risk, high-velocity environments, often leading to internal deployments.
Some hackathons like HaRBInger and SAP Hackfest go beyond software, they have niche focus on topics like secure banking, digital fraud prevention and more.
By embedding hackathons into innovation strategies, India’s IT enterprises are redefining R&D, by making experimentation faster, collaboration wider and outcomes more measurable.
The NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) Blockchain Hackathon co-hosted by i4c, was for working professionals, provided the winners of the hackathon to develop synergies with NPCI.
The future of corporate hackathons in India will become more strategic and outcome oriented. Companies might move away having hackathons as a one-off event but might evolve into continuous innovation programs.
Corporates will increasingly partner with startups, academic institutions and government bodies to co-create solutions and accelerate digital transformation. Hackathons can be the core engine of innovation in Indian tech ecosystem.
i4C being the center of conducting hackathons for organizations, is ready for the challenge.
Visit i4c to learn more about hackathons or contact us if you would like to organize a hackathon.
