Hackfests and hackathons

One way we pursue innovation is by participating in hackathons and hackfests, where our technical experts work directly with customers to solve business problems.

What is a hackathon?

A hackathon (also known as a hackfest) is a short event (usually between 2-5 days) where developers, business owners, executives, and creative thinkers get together to work on one or more digital projects.

Hackathons tend to focus on ideas that are highly innovative and use the latest technology. The ideas are rapidly developed in an intense process with the expectation that there will be a “show and tell” at the end – a working solution ideally, even if only partly complete.

The concept fosters creativity and experimentation by working together as a small ‘mini start-up’ team to develop something really quickly. This produces something of value while developing learning and understanding that can be more widely shared among your organisation.

Hackathons embrace a number of the themes of modern digital delivery and transformation: agility, experimentation, customer centricity, collaboration, and partnership. They are an opportunity to bring these ideas to life in a way that is fun and challenging. Hackathons can be run internally inside your organisation or organised by Theta (where we host one of more of our customers).

Technologies we’ve worked with in recent hackathons

Augmented and mixed reality - using Microsoft HoloLens to create a virtual display in a real world environment, with applications for museums, exhibitions, conferences and in education.