E.C. Jamming and More About Hackathons
First of all, before diving into the discussion of Hackathons, I would like to make our first semi-formal announcement that we’re going to held our Hackathon, E.C. Jamming, in the first weekend of March (March 4th-5th) at CrossWork, an awesome co-working space that is kind enough to support our event! We will be rolling out more posts to announce our sponsors and supporters, make more formal gestures of gratitude and let you all know what prizes, supports and funs are there in E.C. Jamming. So please stay tuned, do hit the subscribe button on our official event page to get updated when we release the registration page in early February!
Ok, back to the topic. If you have read my previous blog post “We, Code and Business”, you would probably know that the idea of this #WeCodeBusiness initiative following the E.C. Jamming Hackathon was inspired by HackHorizon, basically yet another very innovative Hackathon later in the year.
So what’s there in Hackathons that attracts people? How would people (not just coders) even benefit from attending such kind of events, or more fundamentally, what is a Hackathon?
What is a Hackathon
To me, a successful Hackathon is all about the encouraging atmosphere. True that the most essentially, Hackathons (Hacking plus Marathon) are a type of events where developers, designers, project managers and growth hackers co-work together to prototype their ideas from scratch in a short period of time. Some Hackathons also have a specific theme for the participants to work with. For instance, HackHorizon themes “Travel Tech”. Participants would try to develop prototypes of ideas that can be categorised into “Travel Tech” to compete. E.C. Jamming also has a theme, “Campus Hack”, to encourage our participants to think of ideas that can enrich student lives on campuses.
So again, the atmosphere. I personally do not have many experiences in participating in Hackathon, but just think of it logically, in the very limited amount of hours in Hackathons, the prototypes developed can’t be perfect. And out of these products, only 1–3 team(s) can win the prize — Does that mean all the works other teams pull off are wasted? I would say no. Beyond the competitive nature of Hackathons that makes these events inherently awesome by pushing people to reach and extend their limits to build awesome projects in a weekend, in an educational sense, these events also expose the participants to new technologies other teams are implementing. How are the winning team doing more in the same amount of hours? What technologies are they building on?
You more than likely share with me the experience walking on a sideway on a street, and suddenly an seemingly awesome business idea just hit your brain. Why not test it out in a weekend by attending a Hackathon! You will potentially win your project the attentions, feedbacks and resources it needs to get started.
Developers and Designers aside…
I know. Not all of you who read this post are developers or prototype designers. I actually noticed that a lot of you are Business students. But this only gives you another better reason to attend a Hackathon. By waking up earlier and burning your brain cells at a dangerous rate, being part of a Hackathon gives you a precious opportunity to co-work with people who have the complimentary skill-sets you long needed to actually turn an idea into a real project.
You have an idea, why not come to Hackathons to partner with peers who know how to code or design while you polish the idea into a sellable and sustainable project plan. Hackathons really are often just the beginning of great projects. Even if you do not win, the team can, and will be encouraged in E.C. Jamming, keep the project running and developing. Who knows, maybe one day, you would parent a project scales like Facebook, Google and a dozens of others that started small but grew exponentially. Who knows, what I can say for sure is that if you don’t give it a chance, it will never happen.
Finally, Why am I writing this post
The answer is easy. This is a teaser and an informal invitation to all of you who follow #WeCodeBusiness to join E.C. Jamming. We are working hard to get sponsors and supporters onboard to make this an great and sustainable learning experience for students. If any part of this post does strike a chord to you, attract you or excite you, please, wait no more, hit the subscription button here to get posted for our soon release of event registration. We really look forward to meeting and developing with all of you in E.C. Jamming in March 4th-5th.
If you are running a startup or in a great community and see a potential partnership between you and us. We would love to arrange a meeting and share more with you in person or through private messages. Please feel free to drop us an email at kevin@wecodebusiness.com! :-)
E.C. Jamming: http://wecodebusiness.com/ecjamming
#WeCodeBusiness: http://wecodebusiness.com/
Facebook Fan page: http://facebook.com/wecodebusiness/
