What is a Hackathon?

If you aren’t familiar, a hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest, or codefest) is an event in which programmers and others involved in software and hardware development, including graphic designers, interface designers, and project managers, collaborate intensively over a fixed period of time on software projects with the goal to create usable software with a specific focus.

Hackathon Theme: Mobile Apps in the QAD World

QAD just wrapped up its first R&D Hackathon — it was a very special circumstance where developers could step away from their daily duties to focus their attention entirely on the Hackathon project. The project theme was “Mobile Applications in the QAD World.” Mobile apps are becoming more and more prevalent, also in relation to the QAD suite. QAD already has several mobile solutions in its portfolio and the open application architecture makes it easy to create mobile apps on existing ERP functionality. The idea was to explore different ideas around mobile, test-drive some technology , and most importantly, get all of the creative input possible out of our intelligent and skilled developers so we can create more great mobile applications at QAD.

Teams assembled from all over the globe — the United States, Australia, China, Singapore, India, Poland, Czech Republic, Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, UK, Ireland, Mexico, and Brazil — and with names like The Arrested Developers, Hammer Team, and the Quality Crusaders, you know the project was in good hands. Overall there were nearly 300 participants on 48 teams that came together to produce 36 projects. The teams received close support by Telerik, a Progress company, that provided mobile development tools and expertise around the world for this hackathon.

After intense collaboration and leveraging new technologies, it was very impressive to see how innovative the projects turned out. Through this intense — and fun — exercise, we are going to take QAD mobile applications to the next level. You’ll have to stay tuned to see just what we end up moving forward with!

Hacking it Out

This is the first time we’ve pulled our talented developers from their daily roles and sequestered them with focus on a single goal to see what they come up with. Although it was hard to think of changing the daily routine of so many folks, we think it was well worth it. In the end, what was just a few days of re-focusing attention resulted in some amazing projects we can move forward and implement to help the QAD community!

Have you ever done something like this? If not, we highly recommend you give it a try. Even if it’s for a single day or afternoon. Intense brainstorming activities like this not only make people think outside of their day-to-day, but the team-building that comes out of it is invaluable! Let us know if you’ve tackled any projects from this angle and the results you got from it.

Elizabeth has been with QAD for five years, and among the many hats she wears in the Marketing team, managing the social media program is her favorite. When she's not creating a buzz around QAD, you can find her trying to keep up with her baby and little girl around Santa Barbara.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Cool! I’m still new in QAD, but if I were here before I would have participated for sure. Last year I participated in a Hackathon for Mobile Apps Solutions for energy efficiency in Smart Cities and it was so much fun! In this type of events the environment is really creative and innovative.

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