Studying Time: 4 minutes
The clock strikes 12. A bead of sweat trickles down Nawaz’s brow. The workforce’s presentation is due now, however there’s a bug that wants consideration. Because the projector boots up and the judges gear up, Nawaz and the workforce know that they solely have one selection — to debug throughout their pitch.
It appears virtually inconceivable to drag off, however in some way, they handle to pitch their product and debug the bug on the identical time. The judges don’t betray any response. The workforce is not sure if this bug will price them the coveted prize.
In the meantime, on the opposite facet of the new MoEngage workplace, two groups sit dejected. They thought they’d a killer concept, full with a killer presentation deck. However they didn’t get known as by way of to the subsequent spherical.
The stress is palpable throughout video calls. Staff members from all over the world sit related by way of giant cameras and TV screens put in across the workplace. There’s a desk on one nook stuffed with pizzas and beers, each left untouched as a result of nobody appears hungry. The Crimson Bull, nonetheless, is a giant hit. It’s what saved groups up all evening. And no, this isn’t an advert for Crimson Bull.
38 groups. 168 contributors. 24 hours.
The MoEngage Hackathon 2022 is on! It’s the first of it’s type, constructed for the post-pandemic world: a hybrid hackathon. Some groups take part on-line, some offline, and a few combined. However one factor is in frequent — they’re all right here to win.
This turns into evident when one of many judges, the CTO of MoEngage, Yashwanth Kumar, confesses that it’s laborious to shortlist a winner as a result of all concepts appear nice.
One other participant quips that we must always change month-to-month OKR planning actions with a hackathon as a substitute. Wouldn’t that be enjoyable!
It’s true! Productiveness ranges have actually skyrocketed earlier than and through this hackathon. In reality, two of the core committee members, Suraj and Nilesh, even constructed out a full-fledged hackathon administration and participation portal in simply 6 hours! The portal is full with a coding backend and amenities to register, add workforce members, add concepts, slide decks, and pitch movies.
They did this as a result of the generic hackathon portal was charging an outrageous price, which our Co-Founders believed could be higher off given as a prize quantity to the winners. Because the saying goes:
What’s At Stake
Our organizers and volunteers actually upped the ante on this one by creating seven new profitable classes other than the primary, second, and third prizes:
- Wolf of Wall Road: The product with the largest enterprise influence, ideally as a brand new income stream.
- Starvation Video games: A product that improves developer productiveness by a major quantity.
- Million $ Child: One patch to manufacturing which might save most prices and enhance GMV.
- Sidekick: Any hack to scale back assist TAT or shut a assist ticket mechanically.
- Fireproof: Any patch to manufacturing which straight impacts buyer expertise or NPS.
- Minority Report: A repair to manufacturing which reduces safety threat at MoEngage
- Non-tech Hack: Any groups that solely have enterprise, design, gross sales, or advertising and marketing groups as members.
The Winners
The target of this Hackathon was to harness creativity and experience and supply revolutionary options to the MoEngage platform. Each workforce over-delivered right here: most shows appeared like firm pitches made to VCs!
Whereas the judging panel had a troublesome time shortlisting the finalists, it’s secure to say that the profitable groups actually deserved it.
In reality, even the workforce that was debugging in the course of the presentation, Nawaz’s workforce, received! And the opposite two groups who had been dejected as a result of they didn’t get shortlisted to the subsequent spherical? They received too. Seems, the judges had been so offered on their pitch deck that they didn’t want a ultimate spherical.
All in all, it was a loopy 48 hours the place we discovered that innovation in tech can convey individuals collectively in great methods. Groups used new know-how to convey down the price of present programs. For instance, Mohit and workforce introduced down prices of 1 service by 40% utilizing Scylla DB. In the meantime, Neha’s workforce constructed a real-time debugger for Circulation campaigns, and Nilesh’s workforce added SQL based mostly segmentation.
Everybody who participated obtained a cool field of goodies which included a hoodie, laptop computer stickers, and a laptop computer sleeve. The organizers obtained their due thanks for internet hosting a fantastic occasion over a dinner at Bier Library, Koramangala, Bangalore.
Whereas there have been some challenges internet hosting a hybrid occasion and coordinating this inside a short while body, the sensation of hacking collectively along with your teammates, whether or not offline or on-line, was an unmatched expertise.
Would you prefer to take part within the subsequent MoEngage Hackathon? Take a look at our careers web page!
