7 Learnings from the #EuvsVirus hackathon

As humanity, we are living a global challenge that has put a third of the world's population in quarantine, it has involved a readjustment in our daily dynamics, creating new needs in remote work and education, new demand for health resources, the management of fake news, ensure SME’s sustainability, to start. It is said that great opportunities arise from challenges and collaborative sensitivity is also sharpened, we have seen how civil, business and scientific society, have put their resources and skills to provide palliative solutions on the fly, however, these initiatives, especially the most effective ones, have only had a local impact.

Being able to connect with these initiatives and put them on a global scale, contributes to give better answers to this challenge. So, it would be interesting to bring all these initiatives together in a single space and provide all necessary in order to make these solutions happen on a worldwide scale. Basically, this has been the European Commission’s initiative by hosting the PAN-European Hackathon EuvsVirus, with the patronage of Commissioner Mariya Gabriel and Isidro Laso, from 24 to 27 April, where more than 21,000 people from Europe and beyond, gather together to respond to 37 challenges in 6 main areas: health and life, business continuity, work and remote education, political and social cohesion, digital finance and others, generated during and post-Covid-19.

For me this hackathon – a hacker's marathon – has been the gathering of ingenious minds who put their skills and abilities on the table to solve a common challenge. It was a really enriching experience, do to the interchange of many cultures, the diversity of language, disciplines and ways of thinking, helps to open the mind to new possibilities and invite you to think out of the box. Certainly, many lessons arise from this experience, in this article, I will share 7 learnings conquer during this hackathon travel.

1.     Human nature is essentially collaborative

A few days ago I heard that solidarity will help us on dealing with this situation and we have witnessed how it has nurtured out feelings of humanity and solidarity, and this hackathon was no exception, starting with the massive response to the application call, a total of 20,900 participants, 380 volunteers and 2,554 Mentors from 141 nationalities located in 50 European countries and beyond, committed to giving their best, placing their experience and skills to create greater well-being providing solutions to COVID-19 daily life challenges, all of this charge with an enthusiastic and collaborative environment.

For me these facts show that our true nature as human beings is collaborative, here I probe the co-creation of an innovation and knowledge community moved by solidarity and desire to contribute generating well-being, and improve the concerns of main affected.

If you love Statistics here you will be able to curious some results https://euvsvirus.org/statistics, you can also "play" with creative statistics looking at this BI & Data Analytic Application Eu.Omniscope, created by one of Skill Mentor and #EUVSVIRUS collaborator Antonio Poggi

2.     The future is now

In this experience I was impressed to see firsthand what human geniality is capable to creat, putting at the service of a greater good, many of the initiatives and prototypes presented were like taken from futuristic films, and when many things that you have watched only in science fiction scenes, see it created and working at the present time, I realize that the future was not so distant, the future is now.

Fortunately, we have all these technological advances such as artificial intelligence, robotics, machine and deep learning and several programming languages, that help these creative geniuses to create, in just 72 hours, 2,159 solutions in form of sustainable, innovative and scalable prototypes, applications and tools, giving answers from concerns like how to ensure social estrangement in shops?, how to do mass testing without contagion?, how to activate SMEs remotely?, how to debug fake news?, how to improve remote education?, to name some. And although only 117 initiatives were awarded, it is worth reviewing what we have created because we generate a great technological repository that will allow us to act more effectively in further situations.

3.     An Inspirational place

Having the opportunity to match with so many creative minds and listen to their’s innovative initiatives, was a real privilege. As mentor the initiatives I had the opportunity to guide in the work and remote education area where:

• Remote trust: A web community platform connecting people through different online social activities. Quick and easy to implement with a unique facilitator service. Keep everybody engaged
• Noiseblock: (selected as a finalist) an application that helps us to suppress the background sound of virtual meetings to have clear and clear conversations. No more noises in videoconferences! Or muting mics! FINALLYYYY!!!
• Remote geniue: is a digital space for happy & efficient remote workers during the corona crisis & beyond. It features access to a community, mentoring system, personalized library & our smart assistant.
• Power4edu Lean mobile and web tool designed for pupils, students, as well as teachers and lecturers for easy and streamlined question-answer flow on study materials powered by direct-to-content-referencing AI.
• Digital-smart-city The project was born as a solution to the social isolation that COVID-19 has caused. They are working to allow people to continue living their city routine in complete safety, visiting virtually their favorite places in their neighborhood, your city in a platform like a videogame.

This space is an opportunity to stay updated and inspired by several innovative initiatives. This #Euvsvirus Hackathon generated a great source of knowledge and innovative tendencies to support others during a pandemic time.

4.     Resources on-demand.

Another thing to note, was the ability to organize and manage more than 20,000 people interacting, exchanging data and information, in the same virtual space, in realtime during 72 hours in a row, this is where organizers and coordinators played an important role, they kept us updated of the main news during the hackathon and were really patient handling diligently any requests. And how this amazing organizing team has made to handle +20,000 people at a time?, you should watch this interview were this Community Architect Josine Bakkes explains it perfectly How to develop and build resilient communities for (post)pandemic 

It was helping too, the contribution of the event's 800 partners who ensured unrestricted access to their latest technology tools to help us on our hackathon journey, from Adobe, AWS, EY, Google, Huawei, IBM, HPMG, Samsung, Siemens, Slack, Typeform, Devpost, Vodafone and many others. As you can see a hackathon of this caliber is an opportunity to get to know and experience first-hand the most cutting-edge technological tools for developing your initiative.

In addition, we are immersed in this permanent networking environment where collaborative initiatives always arise to enrich the experience, here I share one those a list of open-source software created by some hackathon’s participants open-source health software, collaborative software, and open source packages software, lead by Stanislaw Koltschin

5.     If you add value, welcome!!

To create these 2,160 innovative solutions, apart from the ingenious minds and top technological tools, mentoring is something really valuable to help them with this less technological topics, such as graphic design, documentation, legal, marketing, finance, business strategy, sales skills, business models, video, storytelling, pitching, among others. Mainly, what it's all about is to provide them what you know, how to do it, learning to work collaboratively, and sharing your knowledge. Working here was like watching a symphony play, where each participant masterfully plays their instrument to give rise together to a harmonious melody, as the systems theory says:

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

To be a mentor or volunteer you don't need to have a specific knowledge in programming, robotics, or any tech topic that your team domain, often they just need support in the best you can bring them, clarity, focus, soft skills to deliver everything on time.

6.     Agility a new order

I remember the first time I participated in an entrepreneurship contest about eleven years ago, we spent 6 months with extraordinary mentors helping us build a business plan that would allow us to start searching financial support and give the first steps as entrepreneurs.

Is amazing to see, a decade later, that we have evolved with effectiveness, thanks to all the nowadays agility tools and methodologies, it is impressive to see how an event of this magnitude was initially organized by a dozen people and put into operation in just 3 weeks, with great results. Also managing 20,000 people working whit this togetherness to generate, in 48 hours, 2,160 innovative prototypes, validated, scalable, and putting on service in just 2 weeks. For me this is impressive and one of the greatest achievements, thanks to agility.

7.     The world has already changed!

In my mind I had this idea that to make the world a better place, it was required a lot of time, a complex infrastructure and many protocols, nothing further from the truth, in this case, more than 20,000 people working from their homes in "pajamas", with many cups of coffee, shared laughter, differences in language and accents, different generations, in a horizontal structure without pretensions, or positions, each one providing what knew the best to play his role, despite the tiredness, it was bigger the desire on bringing the initiative alive to help others, as soon as possible. And we did it!!

This experience showed me that to improve the world it is only needed will and commitment, put your resources and knowledge available, and associate with others with a common purpose. Additionally, we were able to learn, interact, and communicate, generating a virtual warmness. As simple as that, the way of doing things have already changed.

With this article, I wanted to highlight the work done by these silent collaborators, who have left their contribution in a selfless way, with the intention of adding value and improving the situation of many. Thanks to all that make it happen

I just say goodbye with these congratulations left by the NAO ROBOT to all participants of #euvsvirus 2020.

Thanks for reading

Thais Glod | INNOBOUND CEO