YB Hackathon 2021

On October 8th, 60 hackers from 14 teams had 24 hours to build a solution for this year’s challenges. David, one of the jury members and Barcelona's General Manager shares his experience in this exciting event.

At a hackathon, software developers, hackers, and business professionals take part in a competition where innovation and personal development are key paths to success, and we are proud to be a part of this journey. This year’s hackathon was a success, and we are excited for the ones to come.

The 4th YB Hackathon

For the fourth time, isolutions organized the YB Hackathon with the BSC Young Boys, a traditional football club from Bern Switzerland, which has dominated the Swiss Football Championship in recent years, as the perfect partner. We complement each other well, Young Boys bring a top location, company contacts, and a well-known brand. We, on the other hand, take care of the selection of the challenges, and the demands of the hackers and bring the expertise to the jury.

Fight to win

In the end, be it on the pitch or at the hackathon: People are fighting to win and overall, following their passion.

Preparation of the event

The preparation of the event started in February. In the first months, the focus was on finding attractive challenges and technology partners and, getting as many hackers as possible to participate.

The critical phase begins a few weeks before the event. There are many questions to answer and many intricate details to organize. This year, for example, we realized late that we also need to stream the presentations and pitches online. Further, we try to bring the individual participants together in teams. Especially the communication with the participants from abroad is always very motivating.

Hackathon

At the hackathon itself, my biggest concern was that on the one hand, all teams could work on their favourite challenge, but on the other hand that each challenge was worked on by at least one team. As soon as this was done, I could really enjoy the event.

In the beginning, things got heated as the teams discussed a lot to find the best solution. After a few hours, however, calm returned, and each team was concentrating on coding. This is the time I enjoy the most. You can really feel the energy in the room and the innovation that is being created here.

When it got close to midnight, I allowed myself the luxury of going back to my hotel room for the night. The next morning, the teams still had a few hours to complete the solution. As a jury member, I was involved in the selection of the winners. We were invited to follow the pitches and evaluate the solutions.

As always, it was impressive what is possible to realize in 24 hours. Some of the teams chose completely new paths to solve a problem. The best experience we had was when a team managed to present their pitches in a funny way.

David Schneider

General Manager & CTO
Dipl. Ing. Computer Science, Microsoft MVP & Regional Director

david.schneider@isolutions.ch