{"id":33615,"date":"2019-10-31T21:53:45","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T18:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prohoster.info\/blog\/temnaya-storona-hakatonov\/"},"modified":"2019-10-31T21:53:45","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T18:53:45","slug":"temnaya-storona-hakatonov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prohoster.info\/en\/blog\/news\/temnaya-storona-hakatonov","title":{"rendered":"The dark side of hackathons","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
\n
\nIn the previous part of the trilogy<\/a><\/noindex> I considered several reasons for participating in hackathons. The motivation to learn a lot and win valuable prizes attracts many, but often due to mistakes made by organizers or sponsoring companies, the event ends unsuccessfully and participants leave dissatisfied. To minimize such unpleasant occurrences, I wrote this post. The second part of the trilogy is dedicated to the mistakes made by organizers. <\/a><\/noindex><\/p>\n

The post is structured as follows: I begin by discussing the event, explaining what went wrong and the consequences it had (or may have in the long term). Then I provide my assessment of what happened and how I would have acted in the organizers' place. Since I participated in all the events, I can only speculate on the true motivation of the organizers. As a result, my evaluation may seem one-sided. I do not exclude the possibility that some points I see as mistakes were actually intended. <\/p>\n

At some point, the reader may think that the author decided to wave his fists after the fight. But I assure you, this is not the case. In some of the hackathons mentioned, I managed to take a prize-winning place, which, however, does not prevent me from saying that the event was poorly organized. <\/p>\n

Out of respect for the organizers and participants, this post will not specify any particular companies. However, a keen reader may guess (or Google) who is being referred to. <\/p>\n

Hackathon No. 1. Strict Boundaries<\/h3>\n

\nSix months ago, a large telecom company organized a data analysis hackathon. 20 teams competed for the prize fund. The event provided a dataset for analysis, which contained information about support service inquiries, social media activity, and encoded user information (gender, age, etc.). The most interesting part of the dataset \u2014 user messages and operator responses (text data) \u2014 was quite 'noisy'; it needed to be cleaned for further work.<\/p>\n

The organizers set a task - to come up with something interesting using the provided data, while prohibiting the use of additional open datasets from the web or scraping data independently. Ideas not related to the dataset were also not allowed. Unfortunately, the provided data was quite 'sparse': it was difficult to extract any interesting products from it, and discussions with mentors clarified that many of the proposed ideas were already being implemented (or would be in the near future) within the company. <\/p>\n

As a result, the overwhelming majority of teams (15 out of 20) created chatbots. During the presentations, one team's solution was scarcely distinguishable from the previous ones. Unable to hold back, a jury member asked one of the teams stepping onto the stage: \"So, guys, do you also have a chatbot?\" Ultimately, of the three prize places, the first and second places were awarded to teams that did not create chatbots. <\/p>\n

For comparison, let's take the hackathon organized by an international consulting company for the 'Zvezdochka' firm two years ago. Since the specifics of 'Zvezdochka's' activities were unfamiliar to many hackathon participants, the organizers shared information about the metrics used in the company at the beginning of the event. After this, six datasets of various types were provided: text, tables, geolocation\u2014there was plenty of room for maneuvering for all participants. The organizers did not prohibit the use of additional datasets and even supported such initiatives. In the finals, ten teams with different solutions competed for the grand prize, and all teams used the data provided by the company (despite the lack of prohibitions), which indicated a good potential for generating quality products.<\/p>\n

The moral<\/h4>\n

\nDo not limit the creative flow of participants. As an organizer, you should provide the materials and trust their insights and professionalism. If you are a participant in the hackathon, any restrictions or prohibitions should raise concerns. This usually indicates poor organization (a real-life example is the constant desire to impose barriers). However, if you do encounter limitations, be prepared for the fact that you will have to create a project in a highly competitive pool. In such cases, you must take risks: do something fundamentally new or propose an unusual 'killer feature' to stand out from the stream of uniform projects. <\/p>\n

Hackathon No. 2. Impossible Tasks<\/h3>\n

\nThe hackathon in Amador promised to be interesting. The sponsoring company \u2014 a large phone manufacturer, began preparations 4 months before the event date. A PR campaign was conducted on social media, and potential participants needed to take a technical test and write about their previous projects to be selected for this event. The prize fund was pleasantly large. A few days before the hackathon, mentors held a technical session to give participants time to immerse themselves in the specifics of the industry. <\/p>\n

At the event, the organizers provided a dataset of equipment logs amounting to 8 GB, with the task being binary classification of failures. They explained the criteria for evaluating projects \u2014 classification quality, creativity in feature creation, teamwork skills, etc. However, there was a catch \u2014 out of 8 GB of 'features,' there were only 20 examples in the training set and 5 in the test set. The final nail in the hackathon's coffin was the data leak: the logs obtained on Wednesday contained a malfunction error, while those created on Thursday did not (only two teams knew about this, and both were from Russia \u2014 the homeland of experienced data miners). Even knowing the true labels of the test did not help to adjust the answer \u2014 the task was unsolvable. The organizers did not achieve the desired results, and participants wasted a lot of time trying to solve a poorly formulated task. The hackathon was a failure. <\/p>\n

The moral<\/h4>\n

\nConduct technical assessments of tasks and verify the adequacy of your assignments. It's better to overpay for a preliminary assessment (in this case, any data scientist would immediately point out that the solution to this problem is impossible) than to regret it later. <\/p>\n

In this case, besides the time and money spent, the company lost its credibility with potential candidates and possibly the opportunity to report on the results. By the way, successful outcomes should be reported not only by participants but also by the company, maximizing the hackathon's PR potential. Unfortunately, not all companies do this, limiting themselves to an announcement post and a few photos from the event on Twitter. <\/p>\n

Hackathon No. 3. Take it or leave it<\/h3>\n

\nRecently, our team participated in a hackathon in Amsterdam. As I have a degree in electrical engineering (in renewable energy), the theme was just right for us\u2014energy. The hackathon was conducted online: we were given a task description and a month to complete it. The organizers wanted to see a finished project that would help increase the energy efficiency of homes in Amsterdam. <\/p>\n

We developed a project that predicts electricity consumption (prior to this, I participated in a competition on this topic where I received a roughly up-to-date solution, which can be read about) here<\/a><\/noindex>) and solar panel generation. Based on these predictions, the operation of the battery is optimized (this idea was partially taken from my master's thesis). Our project aligned well with both the task from the organizers (as we thought at the time) and with the administration's policy in Amsterdam regarding renewable energy sources for several years ahead. <\/p>\n

During the evaluation of projects, we were told, like many teams, that this was not what the client expected, adding that we needed to redo the project if we wanted to compete for a prize. We decided not to change anything, accepting our defeat. Out of forty participating teams, we didn't even make it to the top 7, although the organizers' choices seemed quite strange to me. For example, they allowed into the finals a team that created an app to calculate wind speed and solar radiation (SI) using smartphone sensor data: a microphone for wind and a light sensor for SI. The killer feature was classifying hotdog\/not hotdog into three classes: Sun, Wind, Water, and showing the corresponding article from Wikipedia.demo<\/a><\/noindex>). <\/p>\n

Let's set aside the moral aspect of the issue for a moment: blackmailing participants with the possibility of winning is simply unethical. One of the motivations for participating in hackathons (especially for experienced developers) is realizing their ideas; many strong participants might just leave the event upon hearing such feedback (which happened not only to our team but also to several others who stopped updating their project pages after the mentor's review). Nonetheless, let's assume we agreed with the organizers' wishes and revamped our project according to their requirements. What could happen next? <\/p>\n

Since the organizers have their own understanding of the 'ideal project,' all requests (and consequently changes) will steer us toward that ideal. Participants will spend their time, and it will become increasingly difficult for them to withdraw from further involvement (since effort has already been invested, it seems just a little more to victory). But in reality, the competition for prizes will grow, and participants will often have to redo their projects according to the organizers' edits in hopes of winning a prize. Ultimately, those who didn't win will look back and realize they participated in freelancing without compensation: they made changes requested by the client but received nothing in return (except, of course, relevant experience). <\/p>\n

The moral<\/h4>\n

\nOften, wishes and feedback from the organizers help the project. However, participants should not rely on mentors' advice like a cripple on a crutch. If you hear feedback from the organizers on your project like 'remove this, we didn't order that' \u2014 you can consider your participation in the hackathon over. <\/p>\n

If you are organizing a hackathon with a clear vision of the project but lack the skills or ability to implement it yourself, it is better to formalize your vision as a technical specification for a freelancer. Otherwise, you will have to pay twice \u2014 for the hackathon and for the freelancer's services.
\n
Source: habr.com<\/a><\/p>","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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