A couple of weeks ago, more than 500 IBM employees across China, Japan, India, The Middle East, Germany, France, Italy, UK, Canada, Brazil and the United States got together to solve some pressing customer problems from the comfort of their homes.
The goal? To infuse Artificial Intelligence into existing products.
How? Through a virtual AI-a-thon.
Now, don’t be surprised. Everything around us is going virtual and so are hackathons.
Most people know hackathons as an event where people come together to a physical location to solve real-world problems with technology. And doing this virtually has its own benefits, said Jeffrey Dare, Advisory software engineer at IBM and one of the organizers of the IBM virtual hackathon.
For those who are new to virtual hackathons, Jeff said you’d need to keep these points in mind for successful execution:
Jeff said there were 3 key benefits that clearly placed this model above the traditional one:
The result? “Most of the solutions solved our customers’ problems. We were able to move all viable solutions into production,” said Jeff.
“In fact, one of the judging criteria we have is the hack’s applicability. So yes, we have long term benefits from running hackathons like these. Since it was virtual, we were able to scale the hackathon without worrying about logistics.”
Running internal innovation campaigns is an excellent way to engage talent and have a surge in creativity and output. Here is HackerEarth’s 7 point guide to hosting the perfect virtual hackathon:
Also, if you wish to learn more about hackathons in general, here is our comprehensive guide to helping you host the perfect hackathon. If you want us to help you host the perfect hackathon, virtual or not, reach out to us we’ll help you get started.
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