100 participants, 24 hours, 10 flashes of inspiration that were turned into prototypes: This was the fifth Burda Hackday
30 hours of work, around 90 young digital minds, 21 projects turning an idea into a finished product, and one central question – “What is the future of work?” – that was also the slogan for the event. Last weekend, Hubert Burda Media beckoned coders, designers and business experts to the fourth Burda Hackday at the Munich site of e-commerce service Stylight to work together on new business models and product ideas.
While the talented youngsters tinkered away on their apps and hardware solutions, various workshops saw experts offering valuable tips for success. In “Pitch like a Rockstar”, Natalia Karbasova (head of the Burda Bootcamp and Hackday) unveiled the most important presentation techniques; Xing taught its attendees to ask “What do they really, really want?” – dubbed the “Spice Girls question” – while Dirk Herzbach, managing director of Next Media Accelerator, explained what makes a good user survey.
Why companies need hackathons
“I am convinced that all companies, no matter their size or industry, can benefit from hackathons, whether they organise them themselves or send some of their staff to another event”, said Natalia Karbasova, who is part of Hubert Burda’s team. “Hackathons are a unique opportunity for companies to make contact with young, well-educated developers – a highly coveted target group. As the closing presentations at our events show, this is a place where innovative ideas are made tangible.”
Wide range of topics
The projects developed during the Burda Hackday cover all areas of the working world – from recruiting to efficient team communication, finding freelancers and innovative recruitment methods. The “onboard” team developed a chat tool (chatbot) that makes things a little easier for new recruits and provides a simple way to contact colleagues. The “teamlancer” website concentrates on team-based freelancer procurement, while the “Workspace” team aimed to create an intelligent workplace personalised using facial recognition.
The winning app: digitalised whiteboards
Ultimately, the high-calibre jury – Alexandra Schiel (DLD), Jean Paul Schmetz (Cliqz), Dirk Herzbach (Next media accelerator) and Jascha Quintern of Hackerstolz e.V. – chose the “clairecut” team, whose app uses image recognition to automatically send whiteboard drawings to relevant team members in the form of snippets. The team received tickets to the DLDsummer digital conference and the chance to bypass the selection process and take part in HackZurich, Europe’s largest hackathon. The runners-up, “whish board” (an interactive communication platform for global teams), received a Cyberport voucher worth EUR 2000, while “monacode”, who came third, received a voucher for EUR 500. “monacode” developed a browser plug-in that allocates data from Xing, Kununu and Twitter to unknown email senders.
