IBM is a company that needs no introduction. Big Blue has been a giant in Information Technology from the very beginning. One of the ways in which it has expanded in recent times is through the creation of a suite of cloud computing services. IBM’s cloud platform is offered in the form of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). As of 2021, IBM’s cloud venture has been making significant strides forward, going from being ranked 7th to 5th best provider of cloud services as per ZDNet.
Given that India is the country with the largest population of developers, IBM wanted to showcase, to this community, the strengths of the IBM developer program. Further, given how the developer population has been influencing purchasing decisions within their organizations, IBM wanted the developers to see the strengths of IBM Cloud for themselves.
In collaboration with HackerEarth, IBM kicked off Reimagine <Future> on the 30th of July, 2021. Over the course of the next 3 and a half months, over 35,000 developers from the HackerEarth’s Indian chapter ideated and built prototypes in line with 4 key themes:
The event was kicked off with a panel discussion where the event and the themes of the event were introduced by members of the IBM staff and leaders from Narayana Health, upGrad and Slang Labs.
The hackathon was also punctuated with interactive talks given by Gauri Das, a TEDx speaker and a strategic HR leader and by key Vishal Kamath, a director at IBM. Suffice it to say, the hackathon provided a platform where IBM were able to not only leverage the collective strength of 35,000 participants, but also engage with the community through engaging discussions and mentorship.
“It was an enriching and a learning experience for the IBM team listening to the creative ideas from a varied ecosystem of technologists – all dreaming of a better future.
Priya Mallya,
Associate Partner, AWS Platform Leader – Hybrid Cloud Transformation
IBM Consulting
From the event being kicked off to the winners being announced, the IBM Reimagine <Future> Hackathon lasted a little over 4 months. Here’s a look at the timeline of events at the hackathon:
Alongside the top 3, IBM Learning Challenge Rewards worth INR 1,500 were given to the top 50 participants on the leader board. Further, the winners and their solutions were featured in an article on the Digit news blog.
It’s been a great experience. There weren’t any hiccups and the HackerEarth team was very responsive. We were able to gather close to 35,000+ registrations, which was a huge achievement! Overall, it was a great experience.
Ankit Kumar,
Digital Strategist
IBM South Asia
