Corona was a catalyst for the digital transformation of Odyssey
Editorial note: This interview has originally been published in Dutch on the website the Dutch Northern Online Entrepreneurs (NOO) and has been translated in English to share the story of how Corona has impacted Odyssey and to what transformation it led.
2020. No meetings, no serendipitous encounters, no events, no opportunities to catch up in person. Corona has had a firm grip on everyone for months now. What was the impact of the virus on Odyssey and what did we do to innovate our way out of it?
Over the past year, Rutger van Zuidam and his team made a serious transformation with his company Odyssey: the incubator for multi-stakeholder collaboration that connects governmental, corporate, scientific and nonprofit partners with anyone that can contribute to building open source solutions for complex 21st-century challenges.
“We have always been an event-driven company, but we have become software-driven as well now.”
The Corona-related measures were the direct reason behind Odyssey’s change in focus, at the same time the company didn’t have much of a choice. Hosting Odyssey’s incubation program in its original form — a physical hackathon with thousands of people together in a single venue — seems like a distant memory now. Just last year, though, the Suikerfabriek (‘sugar factory’) venue in Groningen, the Netherlands was filled to the brim with people and enthusiasm.
“So… Back in July, we started building our own digital version of the Suikerfabriek ourselves.
We saw that existing event platforms weren’t suited for the intensive collaborative process that we envision. On the other hand, software designed for collaboration, including the VR platforms, did not fit the bill either. Too boring, not inspiring enough. So when we decided to take this thing online, I immediately knew we were going to build a platform ourselves! Momentum is the result of that process.
Delay, delay, change of plans
This may sound like a walk in the park, but calling it that would be a disservice to the process it took to get to Momentum, a process that started back in February already. “I was on skiing holiday when the first Corona patient was identified in the Netherlands, I remember that clearly. A few days later, on March 2nd, I postponed the hackathon, which was originally scheduled for early April. In general, the Western world took the whole Corona situation quite lightly back then. Some people in my circles even thought I was overreacting by postponing the event.”
On March 5th, the RIVM (the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) tweeted:
“At this point, there is no immediate reason to avoid or cancel events. For specific advice, please contact your local public health service and municipality.”
There were hardly any measures back then and with only 15 registered cases in the Netherlands, the virus didn’t seem like a big deal to many. “But you could see a storm brewing. And of course, I didn’t want to deplete my entire event production budget if I was going to have to cancel the event eventually anyway.”
Soon, the event was postponed again, from June to September. And then, in May, Rutger made a difficult decision. “I realized it wasn’t going to be possible to organize the Odyssey hackathon for the rest of the year. Not in a physical form anyway.” Within a month, he announced to the world that Odyssey would be taking its hackathon online, on November 13 through 15, to be exact. “If you want to get to work efficiently, you need a clear goal to work towards.”
Saying goodbye
Rutger did so in collaboration with his core team at Odyssey and an international group of artists and developers. “All specialists in their respective fields and all working remotely from The Netherlands, England, Germany and Bulgaria.”
Step by step, the original offline event turned into an online mass collaboration arena.
“It is completely different. This has nothing to do with porting what was already there to an online setting. It truly meant saying goodbye to almost everything that used to be so important for the event. What remained was the essence: immersing participants in a new world, collectively solving relevant societal problems with people from all over the globe, arriving at new insights and groundbreaking ideas, and then actually turning those ideas into reality.”
That was a few weeks ago, making this a nice opportunity to reflect on the first event ever hosted in Momentum, which simply cannot be seen outside of the context of 2020, the context of ‘the new normal’. “It was incredibly exciting and nerve-racking at the same time. For the first hours after we’d gone live, it was truly all hands on deck for us to stabilize the system. We’ve succeeded at that. Throughout the weekend, we’ve updated the platform thirty times without a second of downtime (tnx to Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, Azure). On Saturday afternoon at peak usage, over 1600 people from over 60 different countries were, at the same time, logged into Momentum and actively collaborating. I am really happy that we were able to pull this off!” Not to even mention the success of the participating teams, our partners and their stakeholders. “The results are better than they had ever been before. The collaborations and prototypes that emerged from Momentum are leading to concrete solutions for complex societally relevant issues, supported by a multitude of stakeholders.
Of course, there is always room for improvement. But having seen a glimpse of what is possible, the feeling that remains after Momentum’s premiere: This is just the beginning and there’s so much more to come!”
Walter and Julian
2020 is the year in which the Odyssey hackathon changed from a physical event to an event hosted in Odyssey’s own online platform. Forever, Rutger thinks. “It will never be like it was anymore, but I foresee hybrid forms, with our partners, their stakeholders and teams coming together, meeting up in a multitude of locations around the world, all logging into Momentum to connect, collaborate and achieve unprecedented results.”
Now is the time to expand Momentum. The platform offers many opportunities.
“Using Momentum, we can develop new products and services, all focused on result-driven collaboration and co-creation.”
And with that, this corona year is one to never forget. Rutger: “Much of this year didn’t exactly put a smile on your face. But this year also showed us, very clearly, that many things should and can be changed, on all kinds of levels. I believe that 2020 marks a turning point in multiple respects. Societally, for companies, organizations, governments, and also for relationships. That was actually one of the few upsides of this year, the fact that working from home, my wife and I got to spend more time with our two sons Walter and Julian. Nobody will ever be able to take that away from us.”
“2020 also makes you think. My sons are one and almost three years old now; what kind of world are we raising them in? I’m happy to see so many people trying to contribute to societal issues that are relevant to all of us, as people and as entrepreneurs. And I wouldn’t be Rutger if I didn’t say we really need more of that, so let’s step up the game together!”
