First Hackathon, First Place:
The story of the winner of the Future City Hackathon.
Well, it may seem a weird title but in fact, it is not, because I have managed to win my very first hackathon in less than 2 months since I moved to Estonia! Isn’t that cool?!
The story begins when I arrived here with absolutely no connections and nobody to help me out. Nevertheless, I got to know people rapidly, joined the TalTech Student Ambassadors program, went to the community center, and also became a part of the StarterTallinn program, where I continue working on my entrepreneurial ideas. There are quite a few more things to mention but let’s get down to the story of winning the Future City Hackathon just a week or so ago.
Let the story begin…
The story of the hackathon is quite a strange one since I was rushing to get to know new people and Tallinn quickly, but also to get a job, filling in tens of applications, and yet I was curious to find something related to my area of expertise so I could learn something new, establish better networking and add a nice line to my portfolio.
I was passing by a billboard with a bold Future City Hackathon on it and it made me curious at least for two reasons. Firstly, the “Future City” part really spoke to my heart as it is directly related to my specialty and experience in architecture and real estate development back home in Egypt. Secondly, the word Hackathon really freaks me out, since I know as little in programming as you can imagine, and so I decided to give it a try.
Ready, steady, go!
Everything ran smoothly and I got a confirmation about the meet-up for participants in the Ülemiste City, the place I enjoy walking around so much, and I instantly felt I might work on something cool. I was the first one to show up and once we were through with the very interesting presentation, Ülemiste City Tour we headed to Mektory, and I still had no idea what I am actually up to… The only thing I did know is that our lucky group was number 13, so I took a seat at the table with the corresponding number and others started to show up immediately.
Married for 2 days
During the introduction challenge, we still had zero idea as to what is waiting for us and I couldn’t help myself but sketching solutions for every single challenge that could potentially be offered to us. Only a bit later we learned that our challenge had already been selected and we will get to that soon. Luckily the uncertainty part ended up quickly and we headed to the room allocated to us to find ourselves trapped with a pretty odd problem. And so we found ourselves “married to each other for the coming 2 days”, — quoting the host. In less than 24 hours we had to make our first pitch. Not easy to say the least, yet 6 flags of different countries with different degrees on our table gave me some confidence.
The challenge
Our challenge was to find a way to connect TalTech campus and the business incubation campus Technopol and encourage more students from TalTech to go and meet the tech geeks next door.
We got along so fast and the ideas about how to bridge the two entities started to pop up here and there. I realized I am the youngest in my team, as well as the most recent resident in Estonia. to an extent that I even don’t have my residence permit yet… We kept brainstorming and putting our ideas in a logical structure until we had to call it a day and have some rest for the day to come.
Day 2
Before 10 we were at the table with all of the results of the brainstorm session from the day before. We were preparing our best ideas to be applied in a design sprint session. I was not too excited about this part because I felt it would consume our already consumed time, but luckily it was very helpful for our team.
Afterwards, we met our first mentor from Tehnopol, who gave us a better understanding of the needs of his organization in a personal feedback which contributed a great deal to our first pitch.
And then we started preparing for the pitch that was to take place before the sunset, developing a storyboard to clarify our idea to the jury. As expected they liked it but as usual, we got hit by the question on finances. As a result we had to reformulate our ideas and prepare for the final pitch more thoroughly.
In the evening we talked in person with some of the jurors about the sustainability of our idea and since their feedback was mostly positive we decided to move on with it and split our group into two to make the communication easier. I left earlier this day since I intended to continue working on the presentation at home, but in the end, I was so tired that I fell asleep immediately.
Getting things done
I woke up by 6 am trying to fit everything I wanted in a single illustration. I have sent it to my team-mate so we could continue working on it together. I left for Mektory only later realizing I left my laptop at home… I was not the only one. The third of our team was so tired and concentrated on work they forgot their laptops at home. Luckily it was quickly solved and we got a room with computers. We have been rushing to get things done — creating a story for the presentation, rushing for prototype testing, working on the feedback… The real teamwork in action! By the evening we have finally submitted the presentation and now it was time to practice the final pitch.
The final countdown
And here we are, in the middle of a big conference hall listening to 12 different pitches from other teams before it’s our turn. Two of the pitches tackle the same challenge we had, but we remain confident. We go up the stage and try to squeeze our pitch in half of the amount of time that we would actually need. We planned not less than impressing all the 9 jurors and other 17 teams from the first show and winning them over with our idea of the integration of physical and digital space. And we nailed it with our unicorn pitch. The TechWay!
The core of our idea — an integration between physical and digital space, where people can meet, gather and solve real problems for startups and business enterprises. We encourage informal meetings by algorithms based on the given area of expertise.
5 more teams to go and pitches to hear and time for a long stressful break. I told my colleagues — “We are the winners”, but everyone was cautious and modest till the very end.
One hour later we heard the name of our team from the stage as… the winner of the Future City Hackathon!
Conclusions
Believe it or not, the prize pool is not meant to be spent for the nightlife, but to proceed with the idea to the next step.
This experience is quite interesting to me in many ways. I used to have a very tight schedule where I come from and so I am very comfortable with the idea of living next to a business incubator. I also appreciate the direct contact with the business leaders who now I can address my questions to.
We most definitely have plans for the nearest future and hope to make another big hit anytime soon with my great team.
