What for?
Any hackathon known among a wide range of specialists usually has a specific and openly stated goal. Agree, no one will spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on promotion, renting a huge premises and freshly squeezed carrot juices just for fun. Therefore, on their colorful landing pages adapted for smartphones, the organizers always write in a beautiful and bold font why all this is needed.
The HackPrinceton page states that the event will bring together “the best developers and designers from across the country to create amazing software and hardware projects.” The HackDavis project, no less popular in the United States, defines its mission as “hack for social good,” that is, to do projects for the public good. There are also more specialized options. The FlytCode hackathon asks participants to work on innovative algorithms to automate drone flight missions. Surely there are hackathons that are designed to help people fight migraines or finally get teenagers off their smartphones.
Meanwhile, here in Russia, in general, everything is always either completely easy, fun and just like that, or serious to the most extreme extent. But serious doesn't mean boring. We tell you what the country's largest hackathon will be like.
The “Digital Breakthrough” hackathon, which is run by the ANO “Russia – the Land of Opportunities”, is large-scale, ambitious and about large and important tasks. His mission is to find undecided but enthusiastic talent, put them together into teams and invite the best of them to work on projects that, in no small part, will forever change the technological landscape of the country.
The phrase “digital breakthrough” sounds very appropriate here. After all, “digital” is not only a fashionable word from the speeches of officials, but also an “umbrella” term for a variety of technologies. Just some 7-10 years ago, all our travel cards, movie tickets and registration windows in clinics were completely analog. Now “digital” rules the roost everywhere. There are probably dozens more different aspects of our lives that can be digitalized beyond recognition. The goals of such digitalization can be very different - increasing comfort and safety, speeding up trivial social algorithms, saving time, moral resources and even your grandmother’s pension.
Of course, the state is doing this anyway, spending billions of rubles on the development and implementation of national programs. Thousands of specialists are working on the complete “digitalization” of the process of obtaining medical services, the education sector has its own projects, and a large-scale project for the implementation of “Safe City” hardware and software systems is being implemented. But, as mentioned above, our daily life is so multifaceted that there is and will always be room for improvement. Why not take part in this and bring real benefit to the country?
For whom?
There are and cannot be any restrictions here. According to project leader Oleg Mansurov, “Digital Breakthrough” is not about formalities. There are no strict requirements limiting the professional level of participants. However, the organizers hope that this level will be higher than the basic level.
“A specialized education is also not required. Rather, on the contrary, it is assumed that among the participants there will be those who completed courses at different times, as well as those who focused exclusively on self-education. And there will obviously be quite a few of the latter.”
It’s a well-known fact: to win a hackathon, it’s not enough to be able to program well, draw beautiful icons, or master the Gantt chart perfectly. You need everything at once. Therefore, interdisciplinary teams will be formed from the selected Digital Breakthrough participants. Perhaps its most effective composition is several programmers, one designer (who is guaranteed not to argue with another designer) and a manager with developed marketing skills.
How?
If now it becomes clearer to you why all this is needed, then it’s time to tell how it will all happen. The hackathon formula is this: 50-40-48. This means that after selection, registered participants will be asked to take online testing on 50 possible topics, then qualifying hackathons will be held in 40 regions of the country at once, and finally, the strongest will meet at the grand final hackathon lasting 48 hours.
In order not to be late on the digitalization train that is rapidly gaining cruising speed, you should put aside Facebook and TV series right now and simply submit an application on the website . This is an absolutely painless and quick procedure that can have consequences - an invitation to a qualifying hackathon in your city.
Between the application and the visit to the regional hackathon is the best “friend or foe” recognition system - an extensive test of the declared skills. Let's give the floor to Oleg again:
“Testing will take place in fifty skills - a number of programming languages, a number of theoretical aspects of creating information systems, software design, project management, product management, financial and business analysis and some others. As you can see, it’s a very diverse spectrum.”
Who are the judges?
The level of a hackathon is determined not only by the scale of the stated topics and the size of the budget. The composition of the expert council is of great importance. And here “Digital Breakthrough” sets a high bar. The expert council includes representatives of Mail.ru, Rostelecom, Rosatom, MegaFon and other companies. The final requirements for the testing stage and tasks for the hackathons themselves are developed in close partnership with leading educational institutions in Russia, such as ITMO, MIPT, MSTU. Bauman.
Ideas are worthless without decent implementation. It's time to start doing it!
Source: habr.com