WHAT EXACTLY IS A HACKATHON?
A hackathon, also known as a codefest, is a social coding event that brings computer programmers and other interested people together to improve upon or build a new software program.
The hackathon word is a portmanteau of the word hacker, which means clever programmer, and marathon, an event marked by endurance.
The concept of the hackathon, also called a hack day or hack fest, was born out of the open-source community. The first event labeled a hackathon was the OpenBSD Hackathon in Calgary, Canada, on June 4, 1999.
WHAT DO WE DO AT A HACKATHON?
A hackathon is a timed event in which teams made up of both technical and business experts get together to collaborate intensively on creative projects. The aim is to design, build and present the most innovative solution to a problem, and then pitch a final concept, prototype or presentation to the stakeholders.
Pros and cons of A hackathon
Hackathons bring people with technical backgrounds together to form teams to solve a problem or develop new ideas.
Hackathons can help participants hone their IT skills, meet people and work with others in their field. Corporate hackathons encourage employees to innovate, foster team building, and provide opportunities to cross-collaborate across departments.
Hackathons can potentially create more stress for employees. The ideas typically generated through a hackathon can prove complicated as well, because there is often no formal way to sift through or evaluate the ideas. Hackathons also involve time, cost, and other resources to produce, with no guaranteed return on investment.
Must-Have Skills For A Hackathon Team:
1. Domain Expertise
one of the main objectives of participating in a Hackathon is to create optimal solutions for particular problems. And you can’t expect to provide relevant & impactful solutions for a given problem.
it’s mandatory to have at least a single person in your team who has expertise in the particular domain.
2. Frontend Development
once the designing part is done you need to take it into the development phase that can be done with the help of Frontend Development skills.
The Frontend Developer in a Hackathon team is required to collaborate with the designers as well as Backend Developers for an efficient working process.
As a Frontend Developer, you’re required to work upon many aspects such as text colors and styles, navigations, responsiveness, etc., and ensure that the User Interface (UI) of the product is user-friendly and interactive.
There are various programming languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc. along with various frameworks like AngularJS, jQuery, and many more that can help you to enhance frontend development skills for upcoming Hackathons.
3. Designing
As Hackathons are majorly concerned with creativity and innovation, worthwhile designing practice is always a must in such events. Indeed, Designers are those individuals who understand & demonstrate things according to the user’s perspective. Meanwhile, here designing skills concerns with the role of UX (User Experience) / UI (User Interface) Designer, Graphic Designer, etc. Further, the designer collaborates with the Frontend Developer to translate his layout or design into the practical version.
4. Backend Development
The person with the backend development skills in a Hackathon team is responsible for:
building the algorithms, API integrations, server-side function, connecting database, and various other crucial tasks.
Though Hackathons can be language-specific however you can start with several programming languages like :
Python, JAVA, Ruby, Perl, etc. along with several popular frameworks like Django, Laravel to get proficient with backend development skills.
5. Project Management
when it comes to Hackathon, it becomes more essential to have a person in your team with appropriate leadership and management skills.
It can help you to reach your goal efficiently as there is a short amount of time to get the job done. The project manager is responsible for various tasks at every stage such as planning, designing, development, etc.
TO KNOW ABOUT UPCOMING CODING EVENTS AND A HACKATHONS CLICK HERE.
