Internshala buildathon — hustle, imagination & creation
Written by Vikram & Amar Kumar
The success of any product startup depends, to a large extent, on its team. More specifically, it depends on how the team can hustle and build things fast. In order to keep the spirit of hustle and speed alive, we organized an internal buildathon for our team. It was a 2-day event where contestants could walk in with an idea and walk out with a prototype.
The goal of the buildathon was to promote innovation; to give everyone a chance to put their ideas into practice and work on something they normally wouldn’t. It would also give a chance to members from different teams, who don’t generally interact with each other too much, to work with each other. Most importantly, it was a way for the entire team to experience the joy of building something from scratch and have a lot of fun doing so.
The rules were simple; team members could form their own teams (3–5 members per team). They could come up with their own idea as long as the ideas were based on recruitment/e-learning in general. We planned to have the event in our office; we have an open-office where our entire team works out of a big hall, perfect for an event like this. In order to ensure there were no distractions and that participants could focus on building throughout the two days, food, drinks and mattresses were arranged for everyone.
Given the number of developers and designers in our team, we realized that every team would require additional design and development bandwidth to build their prototypes. We started the buildathon with a basic workshop on Adobe XD conducted by our lead designer. We also invited students who were good at development and data science to be part of different teams to beef up our ability to execute the ideas (being an internship recruitment platform really helped ;)).
Since we were doing such an event for the first time, we were skeptical about how much interest this would generate among team members and expected lukewarm response and average participation from them.
Boy, were we wrong!
Following the announcement, the entire office went into a frenzy. Team members began to pitch their ideas to each other and teams began to form. After a lot of discussions, analysis and backstabbing (Ok, not really :P), 18 teams were finalized. These comprised of pretty much all of out 70 member office team. The enthusiasm and interest to participate in the buildathon was so high, that there was no one left to help organize it. Hence, few members had to help organize the event and participate simultaneously.
Thus began the 30 hour marathon where the teams built, built and built some more. Food was forgotten and sleep sacrificed as they raced the clock to get their prototypes ready on time. It is a special feeling to see an idea come to life using technology. This feeling was amplified manifold as we had individuals from different backgrounds working on different problems using different technology. Some of the prototypes built were technically challenging and the results were incredible. Despite having their own hurdles to overcome, it was inspiring to see competitors help each other out whenever possible. The spirit of imagination and creation was in the air!
Some of the ideas that teams worked on-
- [Winners] Voice based integration of internship discovery and application
- [1st runners up] An automated system to allow students to prepare for mock interviews and get feedback
- [2nd runners up] Creating a chatbot to suggest personalized timetables to students
- A custom Android keyboard that allows students to code on mobile easier
- Predicting employer behavior by scraping data from the net and getting APIs from companies (this can be used to create a more responsible employer ecosystem)
- ML powered real time stipend recommendation for employers
- Interview scheduler along with Google Calendar integration
- A system to add highlights/queries/comments while students are watching sections of video tutorials
- A peer-to-peer grading and engagement system to create a collaborative and inclusive E-Learning platform
Mr. Piyush Mittal from MakeMyTrip graciously agreed to be the judge for this event. Each team was given a 10 minute slot to present their ideas and prototypes to the judge and other teams. It was amazing to see the energy left in the teams despite most of them not having slept at all the previous night. The winners and runners up were decided based on Innovation, Impact and Implementation. This was followed by distribution of cash rewards and certificates to the winners.
In the end, we walked away with a feeling that we had achieved way more than we set out to. We were genuinely surprised by the heavy participation, ambitious problem statements and the quality of prototypes built. This event helped us reimagine the impact and value we can create through sheer hustle, imagination & creation.
Next time you feel your work is getting stagnant and you wish to inject energy and zeal in your team, try doing a buildathon :)
