Hackathons being an intense, focused and time-boxed approach towards creative problem solving have increasingly become an important tool for fostering innovation and crafting software driven experiences. The presentation elaborates on following aspects - • Hackathons as a tool to institutionalize innovation and bring transformation at speed • Understanding the different flavors of hackathons and their relevance in different scenarios • How Persistent is helping customers leverage hackathons for innovation • The ‘How’ of organizing hackathons (Presented At Zinnov Confluence 2016 )

1. www.persistent.com
© 2016 Persistent Systems
Hackathons -
Continuous Innovation by Design

2. 2© 2016 Persistent Systems
Rashmi Tambe
Rashmi is Sr. Account Manager and currently working as Technical Assistant to the CEO.
She is deeply involved in strategies about Enterprise Digital Transformation and Software-
driven Businesses. In her current role as a "Technical Assistant" to CEO, she is focused on
various strategic initiatives and their implementation at the corporate level.
During her 15+ years of experience in the IT industry, she has successfully handled a variety of
roles across the spectrum of the services business from delivery execution, pre-sales and
strategy. She has extensive experience in leading large program teams and has been
instrumental in setting up the social practice at Persistent.
She holds a Masters in Computer Science from Pune University.
https://in.linkedin.com/in/rashmi-tambe-29a892b
@rashmitambe

3. 3© 2016 Persistent Systems
Dr. Pandurang Kamat
Pandurang leads the Security Research and Innovation program at Persistent currently
focussing on the areas of Blockchain and Biometric multi-factor authentication.
He has extensive experience in building products and leading technical teams to solve
problems, particularly in the areas of security and privacy. He also provides technology due
diligence for strategic partnerships, investments and acquisitions.
He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Rutgers University and has several, highly cited,
international research publications to his credit. He was one of the key leaders involved in
building a national award-winning (The ‘Alexander Schwarzkopf Prize’ for Technological
Innovation) platform for Wireless Networking Research.
https://in.linkedin.com/in/pandurang
@pandurangkamat
Google Scholar : https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=oWGEWvgAAAAJ

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How to do hackathons right ?4
How hackathons can be leveraged for digital disruption?1
Why hackathon is a tool for continuous innovation at speed ?2
What are the various flavors of hackathons ?3

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Leveraging Hackathons for Digital
Disruption

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A collaborative effort where individuals with diverse
expertise come together to tackle business and
technical problems in a time-boxed manner, and
translate creative solutions from concept to prototype.
Hackathon = Hack + Marathon

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Digital Disruption is already here,
NOW!

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Every Path Of Our Lives Is Getting Disrupted…
the car the home cities banks healthcare wearables
…everything
really!

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Become Software–driven, Writing on the Wall

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BUT What Differentiates Digital Disruptors?

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User experience Extreme
personalization
Learning systems with
user feedback loop
User-centric Innovation is Hallmark of the disruptors
1

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Disruptors are innovating
*FAST*!
It’s hard to keep up with them.
2

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Amazon deploys new changes to production every
11 seconds on an average

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Disruptors have adopted Hackathon as
*Culture*
3
Product
Innovation
Ecosystem
Innovation
Developer
Adoption

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Continuous innovation, business model transformation
and speed of digital disruptors is pushing traditional
companies to the brink!
To Summarize…

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Hackathons as a Tool for Continuous
Innovation at Speed

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Disruption is led by 3 pivotal forces
Business
Transformation
Culture
Transformation
Technology
Transformation
Continuously delivered at Speed
Fundamental disruption
of business model
Devops, hackathons,
autonomy and design
thinking fuel continuous
innovation engine
Innovation led by
Software driven things
(IoT), Cloud, Big data, ML,
etc.

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How fast can you deliver
this in your enterprise?
2 August 2016

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Software 4.0 for Software Driven Business
Design Thinking –
Ideation Framework
Hackathons –
Internalize innovation
Continuous Engineering –
Institutionalize speed
Four Ingredients for HOW of Software Driven Business
Incrementally delivered via Agile

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Why Hackathons are necessary to inculcate
innovation?
Habit forming
Mindset change
Industrialized setup for innovation

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How does it help Organizations?
Low risk, low cost of failure
Ground-up innovation
Generates new ideas
Increases collaboration
Focuses on quick wins
Portrays the art of the possible
Validates product concepts quickly
Great way to identify and engage talent

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Fashion Hackathon Sports Hackathon Design Hackathon
Not limited to tech industry only

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Cities (Seattle,
Chicago, Columbus)
Govt. (Digital India
Hackathon)
Non-profit Orgs
Startup factory –
YCombinator Model
Who is doing it apart from tech companies?

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It’s NOT about technology, but about innovation!
“If you look at the history, innovation does not
come just from giving the people incentives; it
comes from creating the environment where their
ideas can connect.
Steven Johnson, Author

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Flavors of Hackathons

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CodeJam Data-centric Open Platform-based
Definition
Coding competition
for specific set of
problems
Building innovative
products and insights on
specific set of data
Building solutions around
open problem statements
Leveraging APIs and
building solutions on a
platform
Focus
Acceleration
Known Problems
Multiple Solutions
Data Insights
Data mashups
Data solutions
Experimentation
Unknown Problems
Unknown Solutions
Exploration
API mashups
New ways to leverage
Parameters
Open Technology,
datasets
Defined Domain
Open Technology
Defined Domain, datasets
Open Technology,
Domain, Data
Defined Technology
Open Domain, Data
Examples Code Gladiator
Race2Insights,
Ohio State Data
Hackathon
Semicolons,
Digital Pune Hackathon
Appian Customers
Hackathon, Lithium
Hackathon
Types of Hackathons

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Hackathons - Internalizing Innovation
The garage mindset : In an era where experiences are short-lived; innovate, create
and deploy fast.
2. Design thinking process for
Visualization of customer journey
3. Identify use cases
1. KPI based Discovery
4. Working model building
via Hackathon
5. Evaluate, Iterate and
Improve

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Catalyst For Product Innovation
IDEA
DESIGN
Business
Case
Product
Prototype
Working
Model
1-2 BUSINESS DAYS
3-8 WEEKS
Fully Functional
App

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Problem Solving & Converting Ideas to tangible prototypes that
demonstrate Product Vision
Key Deliverable - Experience Prototypes

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Impact – Would the application have real business impact? Can it disrupt
the way users perceive your brand ? Does it solve a stated goal of the
hackathon?
Innovation – Is the solution novel? Does it solve a problem in a creative or
never-seen-before way? Did all participants come out with novel ideas?
Technical Achievement – Did teams solve a hard technical problem? Did
they get a working demo completed within the allotted time ?
How is success measured ?

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“The project prepared by the students (Aqua team) of Army Institute
of College is very practical and can be implemented initially on pilot
basis. Based on the findings after implementation, the model can be
repeated for the entire Pune city with certain modifications, if
required," said VG Kulkarni, the head of the PMC's water
department.”
DigitalPuneHackathon

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Cooking a successful Hackathon
Food – pizzas, chips and energy drinks!
Leadership championing the event!
Involvement for key stakeholders
Fun – Music, dance, and yoga!
Time-boxed approach Engage using Culturally tailored methods
Proper Team mix
Promotion of event

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Our CEO cheering the teams at
3 am in the morning!

35. www.persistent.com
© 2016 Persistent Systems
How to do Hackathons Right?

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Semicolons
Internal product innovation
Market driven ideas
Employee engagement via
innovative techniques

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Appian Customer Hackathon
Customer-driven problems
Appian Platform based solutions
Close collaboration across
companies

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Digital Pune
60 colleges, 300+ ideas, 30
finalists, 3 winners
Participation from Government
stakeholders
Done as social cause

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Promotion of Digital Pune Hackathon

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Race2Insights
ShareInsights Platform based competition
Data driven insights
Adoption of platform in the organization
Developer feedback to improve the platform

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Assess the security and privacy aspects related to data and APIs
Select competent jury
Vet the finalists for any rule violations
Be transparent in finalist and winners selection
Before organizing an Open Hackathon …

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Do them right !4
Leverage Hackathons for Digital Disruption1
Use Hackathons as a catalyst for Innovation2
Choose the right flavour of Hackathons3

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“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best
time is now.”
Chinese Proverb
do a hackathon weeks

44. 44© 2016 Persistent Systems44© 2016 Persistent Systems
Thank You
Rashmi Tambe Pandurang Kamat
rashmi_tambe@persistent.com pandurang_kamat@persistent.com