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.
Key takeawaysThis key takeaway was generated through LLMs crawling the page and coming up with an overview of the content.BlueCat is hosting its third internal three-day Hackathon 3D to encourage curiosity, collaboration, and employee innovation by combining development, design, and social elements like drinks. The event invites teams to step away from daily routines to build projects with a clear purpose that can improve products, apply new technologies to existing problems, or explore ideas unrelated to the core business. Judging on June 2 focuses on each project's story, degree of innovation, and future potential, with a panel including BlueCat leadership and external partners, and the company is recruiting talent through its Careers page.
What are the goals and cultural motivations behind BlueCat's Hackathon 3D?
BlueCat’s Hackathon 3D is driven by core values of curiosity and collaboration, aiming to give employees a structured opportunity to step away from day-to-day work and pursue creative problem solving. The event encourages right-brain thinking and cross-disciplinary teamwork to generate innovative ideas that could improve existing products, apply new technologies to current challenges, or explore projects unrelated to the business. Culturally, the hackathon is designed to be inclusive and playful—eschewing rigid rules while emphasizing a clear purpose for each project and fostering an environment where creativity is encouraged rather than dismissed.
How are projects evaluated during the Hackathon 3D and who are the judges?
Projects are evaluated based on the story behind each submission, the degree of innovation demonstrated, and the future potential of the idea. On June 2, teams will have five minutes to demo their projects to the judging panel, which assesses both technical creativity and the project’s purposeful justification. The judging panel includes BlueCat leadership and partners: Andrew Wertkin (CPTO, BlueCat), Michael Harris (Chairman & CEO, BlueCat), Christina Perdikoulias (VP of Product Management, BlueCat), and Joseph Orozco (Executive Director of The Hatchery, University of Toronto).
What are the rules and structure for participating teams in the hackathon?
The hackathon’s stated rule is that there are essentially no formal restrictions; however, each project must articulate a clear purpose or “why.” Teams have three days to work on their projects across the event’s three dimensions—develop, design, and a social element emphasized as drinks—and then present a five-minute demo to judges. Project scopes are flexible and can include enhancements to current BlueCat product features, novel technological approaches to existing problems, or entirely unrelated creative challenges, provided the team can convey the project’s intent and potential to the judging panel.
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.
Published in:
BlueCat provides core services and solutions that help our customers and their teams deliver change-ready networks. With BlueCat, organizations can build reliable, secure, and agile mission-critical networks that can support transformation initiatives such as cloud adoption and automation. BlueCat’s growing portfolio includes services and solutions for automated and unified DDI management, network security, multicloud management, and network observability and health.
Related content
How to map your network with user-defined links in Integrity X
Map your network with user-defined links in Integrity X to define and manage custom relationships, such as dual-stack and NAT environments.
Automate your DDI modernization path by migrating with Micetro
Automate cross-platform DNS and DHCP migration with Micetro to reduce risk, eliminate manual effort, and modernize infrastructure faster.
Your journey to intelligent NetOps begins at Cisco Live
Visit BlueCat’s booth or book a meeting now to learn more about how our solutions can help you build a network that supports constant change.
Replace BIND and ISC with Micetro DNS/DHCP Server (MDDS)
Tired of patching and manually configuring BIND DNS and ISC DHCP? Discover how Micetro MDDS appliances can replace them for modern DDI.