Our season-closing hackathon, ‘Hack it your way’ with Yettel was wrapped up in the middle of November. This hackathon had a small unique twist compared to most of our hackathons since it had a month-long online semi-final in which participants could submit their ideas to one of the three challenges related to sustainability.
The jury selected the TOP 12 teams that got the chance to take part in the offline finale. With the support of 19 amazing mentors, the teams benefited from 46 hours of mentoring sessions and perfected their projects in 24 hours!
We were proud to announce the 3 challenge winners, the special prize winner, and the grand winner at the Yettel Connect conference. The teams won € 12,500 in total for their smart and innovative ideas!
At CraftHub, we are constantly trying to make our hackathons more accessible to anyone interested. For this reason, one of our pilot projects this October was a day-long free hackathon training where we helped those who are interested in hackathons but were unsure whether it’s for them or not to gain more insights into how you can be successful at these competitions.
We are excited to share that it was in fact helpful!
An amazing success story is Mehdi Ben Ayed’s quick way starting from participating in this training in October to winning a €2,500 challenge prize in November!
Here’s what he shared with us about his experiences:
“As a young software engineer, I am always motivated to learn more and connect with people with similar interests. Joining the academy and 2 hackathons with CraftHub certainly allowed me to learn much more and be in touch with the people who inspired and supported me to grow continuously.
It all started with a JunctionX Budapest hackathon YoutTube ad. I didn’t skip the video, but instead, I checked the event website and registered to join the hackathon right away. Honestly, I was hesitant to participate in JunctionX Budapest as I had no team and no hackathon experience. Fortunately, I received an email from CraftHub inviting me to join the academy, a training day in which I understood all I needed to know about competing in a hackathon.
JunctionX Budapest was my first hackathon ever. When I got there, I teamed up with participants I met in the academy and others I met at the venue. All other teams were formed before the event started and we were the only team getting to know each other and breaking the ice for the first 5 hours of the competition. My favorite part about JunctionX Budapest was managing to work with people I just met and get selected as one of the top 8 ideas by the end of the event.
‘Hack it your way’ was my second hackathon adventure. I was able to win the challenge because I was ready to push myself again and try to achieve better results. 3 main assets were crucial to win a challenge; a great team, an innovative idea, and a good prototype. I contacted Marouane and Louay, 2 friends I knew I would enjoy working with, and I had faith in their potential and skills. A great team was formed and we came up with an innovative idea thanks to the tools and methodologies we learned on the training day with Crafthub. We had to do our best to create a good prototype, and we kept on working for hours and hours to shape and improve the solution taking into consideration the feedback and tips of all the mentors we spoke with.
If you don’t know what a hackathon is, or if you never had the chance to attend one, I must tell you that CraftHub will help you explore this world full of surprises and adventures! They have a great team and satisfaction is guaranteed if you challenge yourself and join one of their events soon.
Super thankful to the amazing team working at CraftHub and I am truly grateful for the efforts they put in and the quality service they provide. Count me in the next time you plan an event, I won’t miss it for sure!”
We are proud and glad to know we can contribute to such talented people’s achievements and hope that by reading this others will gain the courage as well to try out something a little more challenging and out of their comfort zone!
Check out the aftermovie of the Hack it your way hackathon!