The Urban dictionary defines “hacktastic” as a positive statement referring to a strange or innovative programming or technical task, project or idea.
This sums up in a way the wonderful experience I had last weekend. Coming from an academic background my impression of a hackathon was that of a technology dominated event, focusing on simply pushing the technology further. I was of course proven wrong and realised that a hackathon can be a lot more. What the Numbers That Matter hackathon taught me was that having research informing a hackathon can be most transformative. It can provide a creative space where new ideas and concepts based on actual research data can be questioned, designed and prototyped.
A number of innovative concepts and prototypes were developed and presented. What they all had in common was resourcefulness and inventiveness. However one of these projects stood out as it presented a feasible, innovative offer to the hackathon theme that was rich in team enthusiasm and consideration for pushing it onto the market.
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Emmanuel Tsekleves
Christopher Boyko
Hannah Stewart
Malé Luján Escalante