SCRUM Education Experience (SEE) was proud to be part of a hackathon sponsored by the Ministry of Justice in St. James Park, organised by UCL Entrepreneurs and SheCanCode. It was attended by over a 100 participants from 28 universities who were split into 20 teams.
The purpose of the Hackathon was to encourage and support more women to demonstrate their abilities in new technologies and coding. For the sponsors JP Morgan and Vodafone, it was an opportunity to find young talents and implement them in corporate structures.
The hackathon and workshops were held over two days, and participants worked on solutions that could make the world a better place to live in. During their lunch and coffee breaks, participants were able to get advice and receive mentorship from the organisers. On top of that, the Hackathon included SEE training workshops, conducted by the main moderator of the event, SEE CEO Aga Gajownik, who helped participants organise, structure and develop ideas around the project.
After the end of the event, the teams began to present solutions which showed that their creativity knew no bounds. The 3-minute demonstrations with their preliminary prototypes and business models demonstrated their maturity and willingness to tackle complex global issues. A phone application concept for monitoring pregnancy in developing countries, digital help to fight dyslexia, scanning products that cause food allergies – these were just a few of the sensational project pitches presented.
After a lengthy deliberation, the judges chose the following winning ideas:
1. To create an app to help tag animals on farms using blockchain.
2. A pregnancy monitoring application in developed countries.
3. Application for refugees, helping to monitor all required documents
The participants appreciated that there was a diversity of people within their teams as it produced a synergy effect, and it helped them create exceptionally creative projects. The participants were also satisfied with the tools they were equipped with during the hack. Furthermore, the participants who were previously not involved in new technologies realised that they did not necessarily need to be familiar with them to be able to work in this industry.
Here are a few words from the participants:
“It was insane. It was not the kind of hackathon I was used to. We followed the Trello sprints provided by the scrum master: from prototyping, testing, creating the business model and growth hacking. Finally, with help from the mentors and the scrum master, we came up with our solution and started to work on the prototype and the business model in the afternoon. At that moment, I realised that this Hackathon offered a lot more than other hackathons.”
“It was not merely a hackathon but a two-day project development workshop to bring our idea to life practically and effectively.”
“It was a really fantastic experience during the two days. We went through a whole process from brainstorming, prototyping to creating business models.”
