HACKATHON TRENDS IN INDIA
What do a smart insulin pen, a neonatal respiratory monitoring device, an epileptic seizure detection tool and a distress signal wristband have in common? These innovations are the result of a growing culture of IoT hackathons in India's technology capital.
Hackathons (also known to some as “codefests”) can be described as an event where a group of developers, designers, programmers and so forth come together at a specified venue and work together in teams to collaborate on projects. Sometimes hackathon organizers will provide prizes or awards to the team or teams that provide the best solution to the problem or who have come up with the best overall idea.
The hackathon aimed to provide the developers a platform to interact with top industry programmers, leaders and help nurture the ecosystem.
Hackathons can be divided into many different types. A hackathon can focus on a specific application type or platform such as mobile apps, specific operating systems, web development, video game development (these are often called “game jams”) and so forth. An example of this can be found in an event such as Music Hack Day where the focus falls on music-related software and hardware applications.
Another popular type of hackathon is aiming the attention at a particular API, programming language or framework. Yahoo!’s Open Hack Day is a great example of this since this event focuses on the Yahoo! API. These particular events can also focus on languages like HTML5 or frameworks like Java.
Some hackathons focus on a cause or purpose, showing that these events can be uplifting to society. Governments have also become involved in these events to improve their services (as can be seen in the South African example), disaster management groups have used these to improve their relief systems and an event that was held by the name of Education Hack Day has helped bring ideas to the fore regarding education.
Other hackathons worth mentioning are those aimed at a specific demographic group such as teenagers or students, as well as hackathons held within a particular organisation .
People who are not coders or developers of any kind often feel that they cannot attend hackathons due to a lack of coding or technical skills. However, fear not, hackathons have been known to involve people with varying skill sets. People with skills in graffiti, graphic design, marketing, engineering, business planning, recruiting and more can easily get involved depending on what kind of hackathon is being held. There are hackathons that delve into art, education, engineering and many other industries, not only technological. Skills that are not normally associated with a particular industry may help to bring fresh ideas into view that others, who perhaps are stuck in a particular mindset, may not have thought of before.
India ranks second in conducting hackathons with 105 events hosted since 2015, next only to the US, a new report said on Friday. According to the 'Global Hackathon Report' by HackerEarth, a talent management software provider, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad feature in the top 10 cities worldwide to host maximum hackathons. With 379 hackathons, the US topped the list of countries, while London (31) and San Francisco (28) occupied the top two places among cities.
Not only IT but other sectors like banking, food, climate, and health care are also experimenting with hackathons to address problem-solving. Hackathons are successfully battling talent scarcity, acquisition and retention as well as fuelling innovation across domains and functions.
Picking engineering graduates through hackathons and not a series of interviews during placements seems to be the latest trend. This year, some multinational companies are conducting 24-hour hackathon to select the best brains from campuses. The mantra is simple: crack a code, develop a software and land that job.
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