The usual recipe for a successful hackathon is to ensure you have a good representations of hackers, hustlers and hipsters.  The hackers are the coders / developers, either front-end, back-end or full-stack; the hustlers are the entrepreneurial business types & the hipsters are the creative designers folks – Forbes calls this the Dream Team and it’s been a successful pattern for most hackathons I’ve been involved in over the years.

However, the recent Techfugees Melbourne hackathon added a fourth important element – the Humanitarian, and in the process we created a real dream team – one that was inspired to co-create solutions for the newly arrived former refugees

I was part of the organising team, which was also a bit of a dream team, or as I now dub them the  “Magnificent Seven” : Lynda Ford, Shelli Trung, Lama Tayeh, Michael Coburn, Jieh-Yung Lo & Wesa Chau and of course little ol’me.

We had never met each other before the event, but during the preparation of the event we got to know each other and everyone brought their particular skills and capabilities to the process – the Magnificent Seven, was able to track down a marvellous venue; get the word out to Hackers, Hustlers & Hipsters; recruit talented mentors; identify judges, attract great sponsors, partners & supporters; and basically get the ball rolling for a hackathon.

But this wasn’t enough, we also were able to great support from 2 organisations that work with migrants and former refugees – Australian Red Cross & AMES Australia, and this is where we added the humanitarians. This is where the stories came from, the problems that needed to be addressed over the weekend, which gave us a baker’s dozen of areas to be tackled - Disability access and support, Employment, Entrepreneurship, Food security, Health, Housing, Language, Legal system, Migration advice, Migration hub, Qualifications, Tracing to Family Reunion & Translating and Interpreting.

As part of the lead-up we ran a series of webinars to introduce people to the event. We used this to explain the basics – Why, Who, What, When, Where. We ran these at different times during the week of the event, so as to make sure folks were well prepared.

The structure of the event followed a typical hackathon pattern – Friday evening kick-off; Saturday develop solution; Sunday prepare pitch/ wrap-up and then the presentation ceremony to close the event and celebrate all the hard work!

Friday evening (or day 0) kicked off at 7pm with registration, introductions, sponsor thanks, guest speakers & then team formation. We had a colour coded system to identify the respective roles of Hacker, Hipster, Hustler and Humanitarian. In retrospect, we also needed something for mentors, sponsors, observers, organisers and all the other roles we had – lesson learnt!  We also live-streamed the ceremony and it’s online!

The goal was to have teams formed by the end of the evening & an idea to work on. We started a walk-around about 930pm to meet each team, asking for a team name and a contact. We succeeded in getting names for what we thought were 13 teams. Over the course of the weekend, the team count grew to 15, the team names changed, as did some of the focus areas being tackled. It was definitely a rollercoaster experience for the attendees as well as everyone else involved! 

We ensured that all the basic needs for a successful hackathon were met, including wi-fi, food, beverages, coffee, snacks and spots to chill-out. We had folks working over the weekend, so we needed to make sure they were looked after! However, we did shut the doors at around 10pm on Saturday, because I need some sleep!

Over the course of the weekend, we had great mentors come in to assist the team, and here’s where I want to do a shout-out to Jason Cormier and Jason Taylor who were there to help wrangle mentors, deal with tech challenges, and basically do what was needed. Thanks gents! And thanks to the marvellous mentors - Marina Paranetto, Steve Bennet, Alvaro Maz, Rita Arrigo, Guy Franklin, Grant Downie, Sandra Arico, Ren Butler, Hima Tk, Developer Steve, Tariq Hassanen, Alex Tanglao, Esther, Eliza Sorensen and the AWS gang -  Mark Brown, Con Emmanouil, Mark Teichtahl,Craig Lawton & Arden Packer. Your contribution was welcomed by all the teams, from answering technical questions to pitch preparation and everything in between

Early Sunday, we had a drawing to determine the pitch order – it was a good old-fashioned pull the names out of a hat, and we got the following order:

1. Friendfugees 
2. AI Sensei 
3. The Comets 
4. #Find my family 
5. Interpreter central 
6. WelcomeD 
7. Open door 
8. 7 Musketeer's 
9. Ninja seals 
10. M-hub 
11. The Enablers 
12. Connections 
13. Foot in The Door 
14. Seek N Teach 
15. This Is Me 

We asked the teams to enter their projects the hackathon site we setup. So when we asked everyone to stop at 1pm on Sunday, it was a mad rush to ensure all the bits and pieces were posted to Devpost, even though we had kept reminding everyone to do this over the course of the weekend. Lesson – pay attention people!

At around the same time, the judges slowly started arriving - Jackie Coates, Judy Slatyer, Will Richardson, Peter Kelly, & Ian Gardiner.  They had a quick briefing on what’s what, who’s who and they were ready to do their bit.

The presentation kicked off at 2pm, we gave each time 5 minutes to present, with 5 minutes for Q&A so with 15 teams at ten minutes each, we were going to go for at least 150 minutes – yup that’s 2 and half hours! We started with a few technical glitches (sorry) but after a little while we had our rhythm going and each team was able to tell their story, show their work, and answer their questions, and we get it all on video!!!

So after the marathon pitch session, the judges headed out to deliberate. It was a great discussion, with different perspectives, and to be honest, it didn’t take long to come up with the top 3.  Plus, we had a people’s choice vote online on Devpost – this is where teams needed to hustle, get on social media and get votes! And that’s just what they did!

So, the winners were…..

1. Interpreter central 
2. The Comets 
3. Friendfugees
4. Peoples' Choice award : Ninja Seals / GAB 

A lot has been written about the event – such as Melbourne tech community comes together to help refugees settle in Australia , How we organised a gender-diverse startup event and you can too, so no need to repeat what has already been said so well, plus there’s a documentary in the works!

I have collected tweets & photos from over the weekend and compiled a little social story. Enjoy!

So that’s my recap – it was a pretty inspiring, tiring, thrilling weekend.  Adding the humanitarian to the mix was a great contribution from Red Cross and this really ensured we were able to something relevant and helpful. It gave a sense of purpose to the teams which really united them and drove them over the weekend. Teams working together with a diverse group of folks in a pressure cooker environment to do something that matters. I’m glad to have helped make it happen.