[Empire Strikes Hack] The Last Pelgrins and The Force of Sustainability
Recently, Vodafone brought together passionate developers from across the galaxy for a massive hackathon. The event was divided into three main topics: Sustainability, Customer Experience, and Communities. Among the participating teams, The Last Pelgrins from the city of Riga, Latvia, united with a common goal — to promote sustainability and emerge as a new force, akin to a band of rebels, challenging the Empire’s dominance.
The Team
On a clear and crisp April day, the team finally united to start their work on a stellar idea. They formed one of the smallest teams in the hackathon — just four in number, including two back-end developers, a front-end developer, and an automation engineer. And the icing on the cake — all of them were participating in their very first hackathon! It was an additional challenge to the already compact team size. With hearts full of enthusiasm and a shared mission to make a meaningful impact, they mobilized together, firmly believing that with the Force on their side, they were destined to achieve remarkable accomplishments.
The Idea
After several days of brainstorming before the event, The Last Pelgrins finally settled on an idea that they believed had the potential to make an impact — incorporating information about sustainability and Eco ratings into the product specification page. Although it may appear to be a small step, it has the potential to make a significant difference by increasing awareness about this growing topic.
During the hackathon phase, the team received a transmission carrying precious customer survey data. To their delight, it revealed that the customers have a strong desire to see sustainability-related information prominently displayed on the homepage. Embracing the wisdom of Yoda’s words, “Always pass on what you have learned,” the team realized that the best way to honour customer preferences was by delivering precisely what they desired. With newfound motivation, they set out to bring their idea to life, driven by a shared commitment to creating a user experience that aligned with their audience’s wishes.
The Hard Work
In the beginning of their journey, The Last Pelgrins discovered a thrilling revelation: all the necessary sustainability-related information they sought was already available on the vast expanse of the World Wide Web. With this realization, they were left with just one remaining challenge — how to seamlessly integrate this valuable information into the specification section of their website.
To tackle this, the team devised a plan: they would create a lambda function capable of retrieving sustainability data from an API and storing it in a separate ElasticSearch index. While Java seemed like the obvious choice for implementation, the team opted to use Go programming language instead. The reduced startup time, compared to the similar lambda functionality in Java, and the opportunity to try out a new technology were too good to pass up.
The next step involved exposing the newly acquired data in the product data models across the microservices chain. However, faced with time constraints, the team made a pragmatic decision to directly populate the data into the front-end pages.
After days of hard work and dedication, the team proudly stood before the jury board, presenting their final solution. While their idea may not have advanced to the final presentation round, they were filled with a sense of satisfaction for what they had accomplished in just two days. As Yoda’s wisdom echoed in their minds, reminding them that “Do or do not, there is no try,” they reveled in the knowledge that they had embraced the spirit of action and made substantial progress towards their goal.
The Future
The most knowledgeable Jedi, who have been closely following the Empire Strikes Hack series, may already recall that the first post discussed a similar sustainability solution. Now, imagine if both solutions were combined — allowing customers to filter devices based on Eco-rating and adding additional information in the specification section to please detail-oriented customers. This would allow us to promote sustainability and encourage environmentally responsible behaviour even further, just like the Jedi Order striving for a better future.
The Last Words
Participating in the Empire Strikes Hack was an out-of-this-world experience, and The Last Pelgrins were honoured to be a part of such a talented and passionate community of rebels. The team learned a lot from the hackathon, such as the importance of teamwork and the power of technology to solve complex problems. Just like Han Solo and Chewbacca, the team had to work together to overcome challenges and bring balance to the force. The Last Pelgrins look forward to participating in more hackathons in the future and hope to continue making a positive impact on the galaxy. May the hack be with us!
