DailyPost 1112
CAN HACKATHONS BE THE ROAD AHEAD?
If hackathons have not become the flavour of the day, it speaks very low of the awareness of what matters the most in a country struggling for software solutions with the assembly line of 15 lakhs engineers a year. And also a software industry bereft of software. A country crying for ideas and concepts, of prototypes or a kernel to build upon, then what can be a better location, event or competition called Hackathon. No business enterprise will do it for you. This is event of the present and the future beyond your annual days, cultural festivals, educational tours and modelling events, having the proven potential of creating software solution models.
It is a portmanteau of hack and marathon. In simple terms it can be defined as Exploratory Programming. It is not way connected to what it is known for in the computer security parlance. To make people understand the real meaning of Hackathon itself can bring variety of stakeholders in its fold. Given out general dependence on computer systems today, it would be impossible to find out a sector which does not need a Hackathon.
It is a sprint like event of 36 or 48 hours and sometimes more bringing top class grey matter to the arena from computer programmers to graphic designer to project managers to domain experts. Starting with sector presentation and problem statements the Hackathon unfolds into a race which has to be seen to be believed. Eating and sleeping becomes frugal using sleeping bags and subsisting on pizzas, energy drink and sandwiches. At the end each group presents its results through demonstrations.
Having Hackathons for a cause or purpose can sort out lots of our problem statements. We should start with the simple and the straight. For the cause of open government US Congress hosted one n 2011. NASA started an annual Hackathon in 2012 by the name; International Space Apps Challenge. Starting from 1999 Hackathons have given the world software solutions some which went in for commercial use after further development. Today when the world is immersed in technology, Hackathons can be transformed into a Nascent Software Assembly Line.
HACKATHON BRINGS HIGH CLASS COMPETITIVE TALENT TO IGNITE YOUR PROBLEM STATEMENTS.
Sanjay Sahay