How Junction became the most international hackathon in the world
Last year Junction gathered hackers from all 6 inhabitable continents. How do you build a hackathon that gathers participants from literally all over the world? It definitely doesn’t happen over night and it’s definitely not easy, but the journey is worth it. Here’s my take on the journey as Recruiting Team Member in 2015 and Head of Marketing in 2016:
My relationship with Junction began inconspicuously. Almost two years ago in September of 2015 I walked into the Startup Sauna for the first time. I was new to Finland and had no expectations, and no local friends really for that matter either. I was looking for like minded people to toss around business ideas with, but what I found was far far greater. A world of opportunities opened up to me, but I didn’t know that yet. More on that in a second.
My big break
Everyone talks about big breaks but I don’t think I believe in big breaks. Sure they exist but I’m not convinced they are beneficial in the long run. It’s not really how the world works. I believe a lot more in creating your own breaks by putting in the work at each rung of the ladder. No skipping steps. Every step has it’s purpose. For me, my “big break” came after spamming then Aaltoes president Julius asking about how to join Aaltoes.
After following instructions to join an open meeting at Startup Sauna, I had the honor of being selected responsible for recruiting participants to Junction 2015 from the Baltics and Russia. At the time Junction was a totally new and unproven concept for a hackathon. The goal was to bring 500 hackers to Helsinki during the darkest and most depressing time of the year and thus become the largest hackathon in the entirety of Europe.
The Baltics and Russia huh? Great, I knew exactly zero people in those locations and spoke exactly zero of their languages. “Welcome to the team,” Aleksi smiled and dug his nose back into his laptop. That was almost two years ago to the day and that’s how I first got involved in building the worlds most international hackathon.
Thinking big is in Junction’s DNA
Since the beginning, the organizers around Junction have sought to think big. Go big or go home, no point in building a hackathon that doesn’t move people intellectually and emotionally as well. The culture that has emerged around this mentality has carried Junction far and hopefully will continue to do so well into the future. It’s the same passion that first drew me into the project. I wasn’t particularly keen on “hacking” or “hackathons” but the moment I realized the whole project was 100% student run with no university backing or safety net that’s when I got excited.
Originally Junction was set to become a regular 100–200 person hackathon just like any other but somewhere along the way that plan was thrown out the window. The new target was set at becoming the largest in Europe. This vision was key for building a strong core team and rallying necessary volunteers and industry partners. Few people want to wake up in the morning to build just another hackathon, but many are quite willing to get up for building the biggest hackathon Europe has ever seen.
How did we get here?
It’s safe to say Junction 2015 was a success, but not without its difficulties. In many ways the woodstock reference applies here as well (nothing worked but everything was awesome). The biggest problems arose from lack of experience anticipating certain events e.g. chain reactions from falling behind schedule. All in all the event left most buzzing, and the team quickly reconvened to begin scheming the next big move.
“Let’s gather 1,500 people this time.”
-Ville Leppälä, CEO Junction
As if going from 0 to biggest hackathon in Europe wasn’t enough Ville, Director and Head of Junction, throws out; “lets gather 1,500 people this time.” Great, thats just great, I thought to myself, especially considering how easy 500 was 😂, but it was just what the team needed and what I needed to get excited about joining the team as Head of Marketing.
Well as it turns out there are actually very few venues in Helsinki that could fit that amount of people with the right infrastructure for a hackathon, so we had to settle for ~1300, the absolute maximum capacity for the venue we selected.
1285 hackers from
77 different nationalities
All in all for Junction 2016 we gathered 1285 hackers from 77 nationalities. Yes 77 nationalities. People from places like Costa Rica, Algeria, the United States, Japan, India, and even as far as Australia collectively traveled nearly 1 million miles to get to cold slushy Finland for one weekend.
Take a look at what the weekend had in store:
Helsinki at the cross roads between Europe, America, and Asia
There is something interesting that happens when you gather people from all over the world together. It’s a type of feeling. A feeling that stems from knowing that there are swaths of people around you with such unique and different life stories from your own, but regardless of your differences you all share one thing: you were all crazy enough to come to Helsinki in November just to build something and have some fun while at it.
Despite less than ideal weather, Helsinki actually makes a lot of sense for gathering people from around the globe. Nestled between the western and eastern hemispheres Helsinki has potential to act as a bridge between America/Europe and Asia. Hackathons are one thing but the transfer of ideas, skills, and cultures across borders on this scale is certainly priceless.
Conclusion
Rome wasn’t build overnight and neither was Junction. A lot of hustle has gone into the project and many mistakes have been made along the way. The event has spawned and inspired thousands of hackers, some even deciding to build hackathons of their own in their home cities. A Junction Tokyo has appeared along the way as well! The Junction story is just beginning but it’s international flavor is sure to stay!
This is a 5 story series about my journey as Recruiting Team Member and later Head of Marketing for Junction, the world’s most exciting hackathon. Read the other stories:
