BlueCat Hackathon 3D

It’s been just over a year since Resolve to Innovate, our first ever in-house Hackathon, and we’re now gearing up for our third three-day hackathon, appropriately named the Hackathon 3D

By now, we’ve probably all heard of a hackathon. You’d be hard-pressed to find a tech company, or at least a developer, who hasn’t hosted or participated in at least one in their day. For those of you that aren’t familiar though, the general idea goes a little something like this:

hack·a·thon (ˈhakəˌTHän/) n. 1. An event, typically lasting several days, in which a large number of people meet to engage in collaborative computer programming.

Dry? We thought so too. So we like to put a little BlueCat flair to the idea:

Blue·Cat hack·a·thon (/blo͞okat ˈhakəˌTHän/) n. 1. Where incredible ideas meet the crushing cynicism of our developers. 2. Where no creativity is met with eye-rolls or derision (regardless of your fashion choices). 3. Where the one singular thing that everyone can agree on is, “For the love of all that’s sweet and pure, can’t we get something ordered other than pizza?!”

Why BlueCat Hacks

Curiosity and collaboration are our core values. It’s in our nature. We introduced hackathons as a chance for employees to step away from their day-to-day routines, give their right brains a little workout and channel all their superpowers into pure innovation.

“When we launched the first BlueCat hackathon, it was an experiment,” said Andrew Wertkin, CPTO at BlueCat. “A hackathon isn’t part of some formula that just works. Every company is different. So we did it with very few expectations, and we were blown away.”

So what’s going down this year? Let’s cover the Three Dimensions of this year’s Hackathon 3D. (And no, it’s not develop, develop, develop.)

Okay, the first one is develop. But it is a hackathon after all. The second is design. Again, to be expected. But the last, and certainly the most import, is drinks. Tap water will hitherto be known as the elixir of creativity.

The Rulebook

The rules are: there ain’t no rules. The only real expectation is that there is a clear purpose, a “why”, behind every project. Hackathon projects can range from improving existing product features, to different ways to solve existing problems with new technology, to challenges completely unrelated to our business.

On June 2nd, teams will have 5 minutes to demo their projects to our judging panel. Judges look at the story behind every project, the degree of innovation and the future potential of every submission.

“I’m always interested in the story behind the submission.” – Andrew Werktin

Meet the Judges

The countdown is on. We’ll see you in the third dimension.

Like hackathons? Love innovation? BlueCat is hiring!

To learn more about how you can join the BlueCat family, visit our Careers page for job listings.