To spark new ideas for the City of Jyväskylä marketplace sales and how it could be more place appealing for visitors, a hackathon was organized by the City of Jyväskylä. Hackathon offered an opportunity for participants to be forerunners in innovating the new marketplace, perhaps even find out ways to utilize the marketplace without physically being there – in the spirit of corona. And for us at Gofore the hackathon was a great way to help in the development of the city center, where our office is also located, by offering expertise in digitalisation.
Gofore aims to radiate good. This is one of our goals defined as part of our new brand. Mentoring and being part of the jury in this hackathon was a way for Gofore to help in the development of the city center by offering expertise in digitalization. We were sparring teams on ideas about software and application development, user experience, prototyping, and service design. Participating groups could book mentoring live or online throughout the 24 hours the hackathon took place. I was offering my expertise as a software developer and as a former entrepreneur to the participants.
Happy fellows. Goforeans Jarkko, Tero, Esa, Juha L. and Juha T. from Gofore’s Jyväskylä office.
How to stick to one good idea and make that a great one?
The hackathon lasted 24 hours, from 12 am Monday to 12 am on Tuesday with constant checkpoints housed by Crazy Town. Checkpoints gave key knowledge on the marketplace and how to design and pitch a concise pitch. Between the checkpoints was an opportunity for the participants of the hackathon to utilize our and other experts’ mentoring services.
I helped several teams by giving them mentoring and one of the key takeaways was that many had multiple good ideas but may have had trouble sticking to one idea and making that great. The second day started with polishing and preparing the pitches; while I was doing work for our customer.
I offered my expertise as a software developer and as a former entrepreneur to the participants.
How to score: novelty, appliability and effectivity
This was my first time being part of a jury in a hackathon, so in itself, it was a fun experience. The teams would give their 3-minute pitches to the jury and the jury could and would then ask questions and give feedback. Roughly half of the 9 teams were pitching live and half online. There were multiple great ideas pitched and loads of effort put in by different teams. I personally like data so I was impressed by two teams performing surveys to hundredish people about different aspects and utilization of the marketplace.
The pitches were ranked in 3 different categories: novelty, appliability and effectivity. Some of the teams shined in a single category but lacked in another. In my own ratings, the winning teams were the ones with the most steady score all around. It was crucial that most of the judges understood the pitch.
Winning innovation was a mobile application
The jury discussed the final verdict for a while, pondering on different aspects of the highest-scoring teams. The winning teams were chosen to be an analogical and digital solution: a new cart for the marketplace with design competition included and a digital application for both the stallholders and visitors.
Onixia, a group of teampreneurs from Tiimiakatemia, proposed to have new rentable carts in the marketplace to allow for more approachable and easier access to being a stallholder in the marketplace. They had detailed plans on how the cart would be designed and put into action. They won second place and were awarded 1500 € to develop their idea further.
Memorandum was the winning team of the hackathon and they were proposing a mobile application. Memorandum is a startup from Jyväskylä and they have been developing mobile applications and are known for their Augmented Reality experiences. They had a good plan with a team that can see the plan into reality. They were rewarded 1800 € from the hackathon. Participating teams will have the chance to use Crazy Town Showroom to showcase and try their ideas further and perhaps take them to the next level.
The winning team, Memorandum, proposed a mobile application.
I look forward to seeing what the future holds with the new marketplace and I wish the best for all of the participating teams and hope to see some or most of the plans come into realization in some form or other.
Do you want to hear about our expertise and join the crew in Jyväskylä? Check out our open positions.
