During the middle of December, Kodify hosted a Hackathon week for our Tech Team of Developers, spread out all across Europe. Under normal circumstances, we would meet up 4 times per year in Barcelona for our quarterly Onsite Week of team building, knowledge sharing, training, and of course, lots of fun! Thanks to Covid, this had not been a possibility during 2020. Our VP of Technology and the People Ops department teamed up to brainstorm a way we could create a similar atmosphere virtually, and we concluded that we should do a remote Hackathon week. A budget was provided for all the equipment and also, in true Kodify style, a beer and food budget was provided to help mimic the “Onsite Vibe”.

The Product and BI Teams were also invited to join the team of Developers, and they were asked to submit ideas for projects to work on. In total 15 ideas were submitted and the Devs had to rank these accordingly, eventually selecting the top 4 that would be the projects for the Hackathon. These 4 projects were the Recommender, The Captcha, The Plus Roku Channel, snd the Plus Desktop Application. Using the budget provided, the participants were split down to one team per project and tasked with building each of these projects from start to finish, in the 5 days provided. Leaders were selected for each project, making sure that none of the current Team Leads were chosen, giving other team members a chance to shine. Andre, Marcel, Carlos, and Carmen were the chosen project leaders. A reporter was also chosen and tasked with collecting photos, videos, and soundbites from the week’s activities.

The results of the Hackathon were amazing across all teams, the innovation brings value to our products. The majority of the participants fully enjoyed themselves and loved having the opportunity to work with people they would normally have the chance to. It was a fantastic way to promote team building and boost morale. Hopefully, the next Hackathon can be held at one of our worldwide offices!