Dream! Hack! Build! E-Book

Ann Molin

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 505

Beschreibung

Discover the transformative power of hackathons with expert guidance from Ann, founder of the Hack for Earth Foundation. With a background in psychology and years of experience as Head Project Manager at Hack for Sweden, she brings unparalleled insight into human behavior and citizen-driven innovation. In this book, Ann introduces the innovative Dream! Hack! Build! method and guides you in taking action through the hackathon process and implementing solutions fast.
The book is divided into three parts. Part I explains why hackathons are effective for innovation in today’s complex business landscape, showcasing real-world examples of citizen-driven innovation and how to use them to drive impact in your organization.
Part II delves into organizing a hackathon, emphasizing audience engagement by creating challenges with a deep sense of urgency. You’ll learn how to choose the right hackathon platforms, structure, and communication strategy, and manage hackers, mentors, jury groups, and partnerships to serve your hackathon purpose and achieve impactful results.
Part III is where you’ll bring hackathon solutions to fruition by designing a customized acceleration program grounded in science and established facts of start-up success.
By the end of this book, you’ll be on your way to becoming a change maker of the future.

Leseprobe

Dream! Hack! Build!

Unleash citizen-driven innovation with the power of hackathons

Ann Molin

Love Dager | Mustafa Sherif Carolina Emanuelson | Dr. Kristofer Vernmark

Dream! Hack! Build!

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To my beloved mother Birgitta, whose courage taught me to live with conviction and who unwaveringly believed in my potential to achieve absolutely anything.

To my daughters Matilda and Lovisa, from whom I continue to learn the essence of genuine innovation and the immense joy of discovering uncharted territories in life.

To my esteemed co-authors, your commitment to excellence keeps fueling my inspiration to heights I never thought possible. This book would not be here without you.

– Ann Molin

Foreword

As the Executive Advisor to the CEO of Hitachi Energy and one of the recurring lecturers in the Build for Earth acceleration program on the topic of Business Planning, I am honored to introduce this remarkable book, Dream! Hack! Build! – Unleash the Power of Citizen-Driven Innovation with Hackathons. In today’s rapidly evolving world, where the challenges we face are both complex and urgent, the role of innovation has never been more crucial. At Hitachi Energy, we recognize that addressing these challenges requires a next level of collaborative effort that harnesses the creativity and ingenuity of people from all walks of life around the globe.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals serve as the blueprint for a better and more sustainable future for all, and this is something we have taken to heart at Hitachi Energy. These goals provide an extensive framework for addressing pressing global issues such as climate change, poverty, and inequality. I believe it is our collective responsibility to work towards achieving these goals and securing a prosperous future for the generations to come.

One of the most pressing challenges we face today is the climate crisis. The need to transition to a low-carbon economy has never been more urgent, and the window of opportunity to take meaningful action is rapidly closing. However, addressing the climate crisis requires more than just technological innovation; it requires a fundamental shift, at a global level, in the way we think about and approach problem-solving.

This is where citizen-driven innovation comes in. Hackathons, with their collaborative and participatory nature, have emerged as powerful tools for driving innovation and solving complex problems. By leveraging the hackathon tool to a new standard with their unique methodology, the author Ann Molin and her co-authors Love Dager, Carolina Emanuelson, Mustafa Sherif, and Dr. Kristofer Vernmark, have managed to bring people from diverse backgrounds and skill sets together, to create solutions that we need for a better future. With the Dream! Hack! Build! method, hackathons enable us to tap into the collective intelligence of our communities and unleash the full potential of citizen-driven innovation.

This book is a testament to the power of citizen-driven innovation and the transformative impact it can have on our world. Through real-world examples and practical insights, the authors demonstrate how hackathons can be used to tackle some of the most pressing challenges facing society today and show you how you as a business leader can tap into this knowledge. From developing sustainable energy solutions to addressing social inequality, the possibilities are truly endless for the Hack for Earth approach to citizen-driven innovation.

Dream! Hack! Build! is an exceptionally inspiring and invaluable book, offering business leaders such as myself a firsthand glimpse into the transformative potential of hackathons and their profoundly positive impacts, spanning from large corporations to business professionals and representatives of broader society.

Ann Molin, alongside her esteemed co-authors Love Dager, Carolina Emanuelson, Mustafa Sherif, and Dr. Kristofer Vernmark, have skillfully woven together a systematic exploration of the unique methodology behind citizen-driven innovation through hackathons, complemented by vivid and illustrative examples. One such example is the monumental COP28 hackathon in Dubai, where over 1000 teams from 112 countries came together to engage in collaborative problem-solving.

Drawing from my extensive background in industry and global corporations and having had the privilege of participating in the Build for Earth acceleration program as a lecturer on business planning, I see immense potential for corporations, global companies, universities, schools, and various stakeholders to embrace the Dream! Hack! Build! methodology. This approach not only fosters impactful citizen-driven innovation but also provides crucial support towards achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

As we look to the future, it is clear that the path forward will not be easy, but rather full of obstacles. However, by harnessing the power of citizen-driven innovation, we can create a world that is more sustainable, equitable, and prosperous for all. I commend the authors for their dedication to this important cause and hope that their work will inspire others to join us in the journey towards a brighter future for humanity and the planet we call home.

This book is not only a must-read for innovators but also for visionary business leaders, CEOs, and C-level executives who aspire to be changemakers in their industries.

Sincerely,

Johan Söderström

Executive Advisor to the CEO, Hitachi Energy

Contributors

About the authors

Ann Molin

Ann is a trailblazer in global hackathons and citizen-driven innovation, celebrated for fostering sustainable solutions. Her work as an international speaker and recognized expert in innovation has graced platforms like the UN General Assembly and TEDx Stockholm. The unique Dream! Hack! Build! methodology is unmatched worldwide, and the recent Hack for Earth event at COP28 in Dubai – with 1000+ teams and 112 countries – highlights her capacity to unite diverse minds for change. As the founder of the Hack for Earth Foundation and co-founder of Hack for Earth AB, she channels her background as a psychologist into innovation and global sustainable development.

I want to thank the team at Packt Publishing for your dedicated support throughout this journey, especially Esha Banerjee and Uzma Sherin.

Love Dager

Love Dager is a serial entrepreneur, hackathon expert, and co-founder of Hack for Earth AB. Known for his outstanding achievements in creating tech communities, fostering innovation and impact, Love is well-versed with the tech industry and has worked for Norrsken, Microsoft and Hack for Earth. Pioneering the hackathon method for the government mission Hack for Sweden in 2019, Love adapted this previously tech-based format to tackle society’s greatest challenges, laying the foundation to what would evolve into Hack for Earth and the Dream! Hack! Build! method. Back in his home country of Sweden he runs Stockholm Fintech, the nation’s largest community within fintech, and invests in early-stage startups on the side. Love’s passions are tech and empowering youth to become entrepreneurs.

Mustafa Sherif

Mustafa Sherif is an urban planner from Baghdad, and he now resides in Sweden. He is renowned for his people-focused city designs. Educated in Stockholm and Milan, his global insights drive his commitment to community-involved urban development. At Hack for Earth, as Community Manager, Sherif channels his passion for community and citizen-driven innovation into international hackathons. Additionally, Sherif’s Urbanistica Podcast reaches over 140 countries globally. The podcast has become a vital platform for urban dialogue, emphasizing human-centric city planning. His multifaceted contributions underscore his influence in shaping the future of urban spaces globally.

Carolina Emanuelson

Carolina Emanuelson stands out as a dynamic force in talent management, notably shaping the future of Hack for Earth as Partner Manager with her innovative approach to partner community development and value-driven partner packages. Now at Apoteket AB, she leads Talent Acquisition and Employer Branding, masterfully steering strategies to attract top-notch candidates, fulfilling hiring needs, and propelling business growth. Her impressive career spans key roles, including at the Swedish Public Employment Service as Talent Manager in IT and Talent Acquisition and Employer Branding Lead GOALS. Carolina’s expertise in enhancing employer branding and optimizing talent acquisition processes marks her as an influential figure in driving organizational success, underscoring her profound impact across various sectors.

Dr. Kristofer Vernmark

Kristofer Vernmark (PhD, MSc) is a researcher at Linköping University and the creator of the Build for Earth program. With 17 years of experience as a psychologist, manager, consultant, author, and researcher in digital mental health, Kristofer is a pioneer in integrating internet-based treatments into Swedish primary care. His efforts were recognized with the 2022 eMHIC award for Leadership in eMental Health Implementation. At the Hack for Earth Foundation, he guides global teams to develop sustainable solutions, showcasing his commitment to enhancing mental health care and promoting sustainability.

About the reviewer

Olle Lundin has a demonstrated history of working in the staffing and recruiting industry. He graduated from Linköping University and his career ranges from leading roles in IT companies to senior positions in governmental agencies. His leadership style combines his expertise in both business development and project management, enabling him to effectively drive success and achieve desired outcomes.. He is currently working as a social entrepreneur and founder of Swedish JobTech.

He can be reached at [email protected]

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Why We Hack

1

Redefining the Hackathon Tool

Driving impact through hackathons

Exploring the types of hackathons

Traditional hackathon versus non-traditional hackathon

Internal versus external hackathon

Understanding the scope of open data in hackathons

Core values driving the movement

Summary

2

Making Citizen-Driven Innovation Work for You

Understanding citizen-driven innovation

Our journey with citizen-driven innovation

Supercharging citizen-driven innovation with Dream for Sweden

Why citizen-driven innovation is powerful

Generating a sense of urgency

Internal hackathon

External hackathon

Living your massive transformative purpose

Making hackathons something for everybody –Redefining democracy for the 21st century

Manifesting your core values with citizen-driven innovation

Communicating your core values

Example 1 – Dream for Sweden campaign

Example 2 – Dream for Earth 2021 campaign

Summary

3

The Dream! Hack! Build! Method

Why the Dream! Hack! Build! method is more impactful than merely hosting a single hackathon event

The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals

Understanding the Dream! Hack! Build! method

Storytelling and communication

Partnerships

Example – a global hackathon at Dubai Expo 2020

The ABC of a hackathon’s success

Summary

Part 2: Introduction to How to Hack

4

Creating the Perfect Challenge for Your Hackathon

How to create a great challenge that serves your purpose

Crafting effective hackathon challenges – building the foundation of innovation

The challenge categories – a framework for exploration

Strategic design of hackathon challenges and categories – fostering innovation and focus

Empowering participants through choice

Communication through challenge categories

Illustrating the relationship – challenges within categories

Inviting your audience to find the right challenges

Example 1 – Dream for Earth 2021 campaign

Example 2 – Dream for Sweden campaign in 2018-2019

Learnings of the Dream for Sweden and Dream for Earth campaigns

What signifies a great challenge

Challenge creation and communication

Summary

5

How to Organize an Impactful Hackathon

Creating diverse teams

So, what are the types of teams you can create?

Meet & Match – team creation and networking session

Hackathon platforms

Communication channels

Communication timeline

Submission and evaluation

Networking and Meet & Match

Online hackathon versus IRL hackathon

Opening, closing, and prize ceremonies

Summary

6

Communication and Managing Hacker Teams and Mentors

The importance of communication

A flexible communication plan

Internal communication

To whom are we communicating?

Communication channels

Social media as a communication channel

Communication channels with the active hacker community

Communication channels in a physical hackathon

When to communicate?

Communication with hackers and mentors

Hacker communication

Hacker engagement through communication

Mentor communication

Creating the right hackathon vibe in your channels of communication

Summary

7

Partnerships for Success

The power and purpose of a strong partnership community

The importance of a diverse partner community

Finding suitable partner organizations

Crafting competitive partner packages

How can it be executed?

Managing your partner community

Mentorships

Jury duty

Partner communities in a national and international context

Example 1 – Hack for Sweden 2019

Example 2 – Hack the Crisis Sweden

Example 3 – EUvsVirus

Example 4 – Hack for Earth at Expo 2020 in Dubai

Value for partner organizations – communication, branding, and recruiting talent

Relevant resources offered by partner organizations

Summary

8

External Communication and Social Media Presence for Hackathon Success

Communicating effectively to drive your hackathon

Exploring the variety of social media platforms and their uses

Exploring real-world examples

Strategies to facilitate interaction via social media

The three steps to implement your social media strategy

The nuances of various social media platforms

Another consideration – paid advertising

Building your audience and hacker community

Building a strong community

The importance of timing

Summary

Part 3: Introduction to How to Build

9

Taking Citizen-Driven Innovation to the Next Level

The final step in citizen-driven innovation

After reaching the finish line

Traditional acceleration programs

Google Aristotle research

Why Build for Earth is unique

Exploring the challenges of making winning solutions come to life

Can’t I just have a hackathon event and skip the acceleration program?

Impact on the future

About prize money

Tracking winners

Example 1 – BrightAct

Example 2 – Recy-Block

Summary

10

Converting Hackathon Results into Real Tools

Creating an acceleration program – Build for Earth

The importance of psychological safety in teams

How to create psychological safety

Transformational leadership

Working with virtual teams in digital settings

Content and themes in Build for Earth

Description of themes and content

Voices from participants

Setting up your own acceleration program

Summary

References

11

Build for Earth Learnings – How to Make a Startup a Success Fast

General takeaways from successful hackathon winners

Example 1 – Recy-Block, winner of Hack for Earth at Expo 2020 in Dubai, 2021

Example 2 – BrightAct, winner of Hack the Crisis Sweden in 2020

Example 3 – Coronafree, winner of Hack the Crisis Sweden in 2020

Key factors for the success of hackathon winners

Grit, resilience, and relevant competence

Sense of urgency

Storytelling and communication

Pitch technique

A great team

Networking

Branding

Embracing incompleteness

Key takeaways

Summary

Appendix A

Appendix B

Glossary

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

What are you curious about?

Right now, I’m hoping you are curious about the content of this book – hackathons and how to create citizen-driven innovation. Furthermore, I hope you will let this book spark your curiosity to explore the possibilities of what you and your organization can do with the Dream! Hack! Build! method, and I hope that your curiosity is rooted in what your organization can accomplish and ultimately what impact it can have in the world. The book you are holding in your hand you see, is a guide to becoming a changemaker for the future.

Personally, I have found curiosity to be the number one most important driver for change and development for me no matter the context, in hackathons, and beyond – I would actually go so far as to call curiosity the driver for life itself. I have always been curious. I always wanted to do more, know more, be more, and explore the boundaries of what is possible. The human mind and the communication between us humans is what I have been most curious about during my life, and I still am today. Before we dive into hackathons and citizen-driven innovation, let me take you on a journey to set the stage for why this book is here, and how it is intrinsically joined with the concept of curiosity.

Apart from curiosity, communication intrigued me early on. My first memory of a dream job at the age of four was to be a mailman – I wanted to be the bringer of letters from people to other people, to be the one who delivered the connection between people across the distances in the world. As a little girl, I thought that being a mailman must be the best and most satisfying job in the world, what could be better and feel more purposeful than being the connector between people? Somehow, I think the invoices and bills that came through the mail were not a phenomenon that I, at age four, was aware of yet – to me all letters were good letters.

I didn’t become a mailman in my career, but the work I do today as Secretary General and CEO of Hack for Earth Foundation is grounded in the same desire that I had at four years old to bring people together – to connect people from across continents, bridging differences in nationalities, age, competence, careers, professions, social background, gender, and more aspects. I do it with the hackathon as a universal tool for creating understanding, building trust, and sparking curiosity – that in turn can lead to real innovation for a better future for us all.

My curiosity for the human mind brought me to study psychology for six years to become a clinical psychologist, and for almost 10 years after that, I had the privilege of working with people who sought help in clinical psychiatry. This extensive experience of psychotherapy, psychological assessment, psychological testing, and psychiatric diagnosis gave me invaluable knowledge of the human mind, and I am forever grateful to the hundreds of patients who trusted me enough to share their life stories with me. I loved my work, but I was not meant to stay in clinical psychiatry it turned out. After a few years working at the local Swedish Public Employment Service in Bromölla in the south of Sweden, I found myself at the Head Office of the Swedish Public Employment Service in Stockholm in 2017.

Here is where there was a sudden plot twist that incidentally brought me, a psychologist, to the hackathon world – a world that is very far from the known waters of psychology. A plot twist is often sudden and unexpected, and this one definitely was that!

Participating in my first hackathon ever, an in-person hackathon event organized by the Digital Innovation Center at the Swedish Public Employment Service at their Head Office in Stockholm in the spring of 2017, I was completely and utterly smitten with the hackathon as a phenomenon. I fell in love with the openness to new ideas, the fast innovation process, the excitement in the air, the connecting and learning with new people with different backgrounds than mine, and the dedicated focus on action – and all of it taking place in an arena that breathed inclusivity, participation, equality, and curiosity in each and every one of its molecules. It was heaven.

I had found my place in the world, and I had to try to get a job working with hackathons! Keep in mind this was the Digital Innovation Center at a public government agency and I was a psychologist working at a completely different department at the time – I did not fit the profile at all. To make quite a long story short – I did apply for a job there and instead of laughing at my lack of competence within digitalization, the manager asked me what I could do, seeing my background as a psychologist as a potential asset and not a liability. He was curious to see what I could do. This taught me to always look to hire people with the right attitude, engagement, and personality traits (including curiosity of course), not the perfect curriculum vitae or formal education background. The effects of hiring the not obvious choice can be hard to foresee, but if you are curious, you will do it. As it turns out, it’s all about people, and with the right people anything is possible.

I was appointed Head Project Manager of the Government mission, Hack for Sweden, and the rest is as they say history. The synergy effects of my, in this context, odd perspective as a psychologist paired with the Hack for Sweden mission and team members, was evident. Exploring the hackathon method together with my team members during the Hack for Sweden years was a time of fast expansion and learning from trial and error. As we together created a space where exploration of the method was fun and playful, finding the blueprint to Dream! Hack! Build! was still a serious undertaking with an important grander purpose of making an impact on our future.

Hack for Sweden grew into a movement for citizen-driven innovation in less than two years. We crafted the Dream! Hack! Build method as we went along, and it was time to go global. I founded the Hack for Earth Foundation in 2021, and we organized our first global Hack for Earth hackathon in the fall of 2021. The first batch of winners entered the newly created Build for Earth acceleration program in early 2022, and we are publishing this first book on the method in 2024.

After my many years of service as an employee in a large public organization, I have learned too well that it was often difficult to take action for several reasons – something that is a reality in many large organizations, maybe yours as well. This is where I find the hackathon method to be like a breath of fresh air and extremely effective: the participants in a hackathon are forced to take action, and in a fun exercise, in merely hours or a few days, tangible results are born. The possibilities seem endless to take the hackathon method into new areas of business, to innovate, bring people together, and more importantly to create a movement and platform where people can take action. This is only the beginning.

So, there you have it: The story of how the Dream! Hack! Build! method was born, and in this book, we will walk you through how you can employ this game-changer in innovation for the benefit of your organization. I’m curious to see where this journey takes us from here, and even more curious to see where it takes you and your organization!

Figure P.1 – The author and the co-authors of this book; from left: Mustafa Sherif, Ann Molin, Love Dager, Carolina Emanuelson, and Dr. Kristofer Vernmark

Who this book is for

This book is for visionary business leaders, C-level executives primarily, who have an ambition to make their organization trailblazers in their field of business, by leading the way as changemakers of the future.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Redefining the Hackathon Tool, gives you an introduction to what a hackathon is, explores different types of hackathons, and shows you how the hackathon tool can be used to create citizen-driven innovation.

Chapter 2, Making Citizen-Driven Innovation Work for You, explores the concept of citizen-driven innovation and how you can employ it to drive innovation in your organization, turning your challenges into assets and creating the valuable solutions you need to grow your company.

Chapter 3, The Dream! Hack! Build! Method, walks you through an overview of the three pivotal parts of Dream! Hack! and Build! and teaches you how, together, they can create innovative solutions for impact, and how they are intrinsically dependent on each other in a systematic way.

Chapter 4, Creating the Perfect Challenge for Your Hackathon, introduces our systematic way to create the perfect challenges for your hackathon while engaging your audience at the same time. This chapter will enable you to learn the important steps in the Dream! Phase.

Chapter 5, How to Organize an Impactful Hackathon, teaches you the essential parts of organizing a hackathon that serves your purpose, introducing all the important factors, from which platforms to use to how to set up jury criteria and jury work.

Chapter 6, Communication and Managing Hacker Teams and Mentors, focuses on giving you a roadmap to navigating primarily the internal communication channels during the hackathon, and how to create and manage hacker teams throughout the process.

Chapter 7, Partnerships for Success, explores the important factors for signing, creating, and maintaining solid partnerships with relevant stakeholders. This chapter will also guide you on how to sustain a vibrant partner community to deliver value throughout your hackathon journey.

Chapter 8, External Communication and Social Media Presence for Hackathon Success, teaches you how to manage external communication to drive your hackathon, throughout the Dream! Hack! Build! Process, building traction on social media and using your hackathon community to build your brand and more.

Chapter 9, Taking Citizen-Driven Innovation to the Next Level, introduces the idea behind the Build phase, and explains why it is imperative to organize an acceleration program to take care of your winning solutions.

Chapter 10, Converting Hackathon Results into Real Tools, is where the creator of the Build for Earth acceleration program will walk you through the science behind the Build for Earth acceleration program, what results to expect, and you will learn what steps to take in order to create your own acceleration program.

Chapter 11, Build for Earth Learnings – How to Make a Startup a Success Fast, is the final chapter where we share our learnings of hackathon winners we have supported and that are on the market today, and you will learn what important factors to look out for when making a hackathon winner a reality.

There is a Glossary and the Appendices at the end of this book.

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Whether you choose to look through the Glossary and the Appendices before reading the book, or if you choose to look up necessary words or concepts as you read, is a matter of personal preference.

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Part 1: Why We Hack

Part 1 delves into the reasons hackathons have become a powerful method for fostering innovation in the world of modern business. It guides you through our reinvented approach to utilizing hackathons for meaningful impact, detailing the vision and objectives of citizen-driven innovation. You will learn what outcomes you can expect from using the Dream! Hack! Build! Method to address your specific challenges, and how to use a hackathon strategically to build your business and your company brand. You’ll explore how the three distinct phases – Dream, Hack, and Build – can be implemented to generate significant synergistic and impactful effects. Additionally, this section highlights the crucial role of core values and a massive transformative purpose, demonstrating how a hackathon can effectively display these concepts and align them with your target audience.

This section has the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Redefining the Hackathon ToolChapter 2, Making Citizen-driven Innovation Work for YouChapter 3, The Dream! Hack! Build! Method

1

Redefining the Hackathon Tool

In this chapter, we will cover the background to the birth of citizen-driven innovation, and in detail, discuss how it can reinvent the hackathon tool. The hackathon as a phenomenon within the tech world is not new, so how can this innovation competition have an impact in this new context? We will discuss different types of hackathons and how they can serve different purposes and goals you may have for your organization.

The reason this book is here all starts with an odd requirement for a government mission in Sweden back in 2018. An out-of-the-box thinker at the Swedish Public Employment Service decided to hire not the obvious choice. The obvious choice for the role would have been a tech person or a professional project manager – instead, he took a chance on a psychologist at the Swedish Public Employment Service who had expressed a desire to work with digital innovation. This turned out in a completely different way than expected – the psychologist’s perspective on innovation, hackathons, and project management added a new flavor that brought about the redefinition of the hackathon tool and the birth of citizen-driven innovation as a concept with the use of hackathons.

From the Hack for Sweden: government mission to the Hack for Earth Foundation, in just a few years, the concept of citizen-driven innovation with hackathons has taken the world by storm, and the results have been presented at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in NYC and at TEDxStockholm. Global hackathons in recent times tend to deliver real results. In the past few years, they have been consistently showcasing that real action is possible. In this book, we will show you how we did it and take you with us on the journey from the Government Agency of Employment in Sweden to the global arena of UN Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings and world exhibitions. We will share our insights and learnings of how we created and built the Dream! Hack! Build! method and teach you how you can tap into its power to make citizen-driven innovation work for you and your organization.

In this chapter, we will look into the following topics:

Driving impact through hackathonsExploring the types of hackathonsUnderstanding the scope of open data in hackathonsCore values driving the movement

Now that we have set the stage, let’s dive into how the hackathon tool can take impact to a new level.

Driving impact through hackathons

A hackathon is a competition in innovation, often organized during a short period of time. A common timeframe is 24-48 hours, and traditionally, this timeframe is set during a weekend so that the participants can devote their time completely to the task at hand. The powerful force of the hackathon setup is that it provides people the possibility to come together to create solutions to difficult problems in a short timeframe, giving them both hope that it’s possible to do something about a seemingly very complex problem and the experience that you can accomplish things faster than you would think. Another important aspect is that people are working in teams, and this amplifies the notion that collaboration is the key to success. Connecting minds to create solutions has been a successful way of dealing with complex problems for the human race since the dawn of time.

In large organizations, as well as in society, there is a need for smooth collaboration between departments and people in order to deliver on set goals. This need often collides with the fact that we as humans have a limited amount of relationships that we can handle at a time. As humans, we have an innate limitation in handling relationships, which in reality means that we create subgroups if the organization is too large for us to handle. You cannot handle the same level of relationship with hundreds of people, and therefore we create subgroups of people who cooperate and relate to each other. The downside to this is that the subgroups’ need for internal bonding means shutting the door to some extent to relationships outside of the subgroup. How much the door is open depends on the maturity of the group and its overall functioning. High-functioning subgroups, the simple definition being that they deliver on their tasks at hand in a productive way, have a higher level of collaborative relationships with other subgroups.

In short, this means that all groups, formal and nonformal, in society and in organizations need to actively work on collaborating better in order for the overall functioning to excel. This is the basic reason there are conferences and meetings of all kinds: to bridge boundaries between subgroups in organizations and society and provide a platform for them to collaborate and work on the relationships between subgroups. This is where citizen-driven innovation using the hackathon tool is an effective and fast way of making subgroups collaborate effectively by making people from different subgroups work together on commonly perceived challenges, thereby building trust and enhancing collaboration and relationships throughout the hackathon. The experience from the hackathon will produce new connections that can serve as a foundation for further collaboration afterward.

This means that the outcome of the hackathon is twofold: you will have real solutions to the challenges you face (that is, the results of the hackathon in the shape of solutions created by the teams), and your organization will be better equipped for collaboration and effective relationships between subgroups. A hackathon makes people collaborate on a common challenge, and this is the key to its power. Collaborating on a common challenge builds trust and relationships on a deeper level than simply talking to others at a conference or during a meeting. If you are to solve a common challenge together, you will inevitably need to get your hands dirty, so to speak. The trust built can be transferred to other areas of collaboration after the hackathon, and one way of ensuring this is to follow up the results of the hackathon with an acceleration program for the solutions.

Note

To summarize, citizen-driven innovation with hackathons is a tool for impact not only on objective challenges perceived but also addresses other non-apparent challenges all large organizations have to work at: making collaboration between groups effective and making the organization run smoothly so that it can better serve its purpose.

Exploring the types of hackathons

Hackathons come in many shapes and forms, and they can be used to accomplish many different things depending on the context, size, content, and desired outcome. In this chapter, we will go through different types of hackathons and learn about their advantages and which usage is best for particular settings and goals.

Traditional hackathon versus non-traditional hackathon

The traditional hackathon format comes from the tech world, where hackathons have been organized since the beginning of 2000 in big tech companies. The word hackathon comes from “hack” and “marathon,” where the idea is to hack a predefined challenge (problem) in teams and let a jury decide the winner. The common timeframe is 24-48 hours, and often it takes place in person during a weekend. After forming teams, the opening ceremony declares the hackathon open, and the hacking – that is, the work – begins. The resources provided for the hacker teams during the hackathon include mentors in relevant fields of expertise, open data sources including APIs, workshops, and lectures on relevant topics. Most often, many teams stay up around the clock working on their solution to make it the best possible before the deadline for submissions. When the submission deadline is closed, the jury’s work begins, and the hacker teams get to rest a little while before the winners are announced by the jury. This is often done in a prize ceremony on stage, where the jury members read the motivation for the winner before announcing who they are – a lot like any gala event with prizes bestowed on winners.

The traditional hackathon has three issues that need to be addressed: the selection of hackers as participants, the formulation of challenges, and what happens after the hackathon with the winning solutions.

Let’s look into how a traditional hackathon works:

First of all, the participant hackers joining traditional hackathons often have similar backgrounds and profiles: they are primarily in the tech business, between the ages of 20-30, caucasian, and most often also male. The problem with this very homogenous group in this context is that science proves that solutions and ideas with high innovation qualities are born out of diversity.Second, careful and meticulous formulation of challenges is key to getting the results you are looking for in a hackathon. The types of challenges introduced will determine the quality of the solutions. In a traditional hackathon, challenges are decided by the organizers themselves who perceive the problem from their perspective, and most often the challenges are not given the time, effort, and level of engagement that they deserve. A hackathon is no better than its best challenge, meaning that the quality of challenges will determine the outcome of the solutions to a great extent.Third of all, the traditional hackathon ends after the prize ceremony, and in that manner, you have the same issue as with any traditional workshop setting: the work accomplished during the hackathon is not taken to the next step, given the possibility to materialize into tangible tools that make a real difference.

These three issues will be discussed further in this chapter, under the Core values driving the movement heading.

The traditional hackathon has a great many advantages too and can create new innovative tech solutions based on new combinations of datasets and APIs in a short timeframe.

An example of a traditional hackathon

A good example of a traditional hackathon is Hack for Sweden 2018, an in-person hackathon with 220 hackers taking place at a venue in Stockholm, Sweden for 48 hours during a weekend in April. The solutions had to be built on data, provided by the 29 Swedish government agencies that were partners in the Hack for Sweden community. The participant hackers were tech people, and most of them were students. Challenges were formulated in collaboration with government agencies who provided the data, which made them to a large extent a reflection of the government agencies’ own internal challenges. The challenges in Hack for Sweden 2018 revolved around societal issues such as climate compensation strategies, labor market functioning, especially for immigrants, and biodiversity. The winning solutions were selected by a jury with tech skills, and after the hackathon prize ceremony, the hackathon was over. The winners in the six categories had a wide variety, from the Biologg team (https://www.biologg.se/) using data provided by citizens to preserve biodiversity in nature to a backup system for the internet to be used in a crisis situation. Definitely, this type of hackathon has value in that it can create relevant tech solutions in a short period of time, but it also struggles with a few built-in problems in the setup.

The challenges are key to a successful hackathon in the sense that they will to a large extent determine the outcome of the solutions and their level of innovation. That is why challenges can benefit from being created in collaboration with a larger audience to make them more relevant to more people and more well-rounded. The homogenous group of participant hackers ensures very highly technically advanced solutions, but without the input of other skills in business, creative arts, communication, storytelling, or expertise in the specific topic at hand, the solutions have a lesser chance of reaching a high or very high level of innovation. Lastly, the lack of an acceleration program or other form of caretaking of solutions after the hackathon has ended makes it highly probable that new solutions will stay on paper. The hackathon might have been a fun weekend but with little or no real impact afterward.

In a non-traditional hackathon, the impactful way of using the hackathon tool from a wider perspective takes into consideration the work to be done before the hackathon starts and the work that continues after. To harness the power of citizen-driven innovation, there are a lot of careful preparations before the actual hackathon starts that involve communicating your vision of the outcome, engaging the participants and potential partners, creating diverse teams with relevant skill sets, and creating challenges that will deliver the right outcome for you. You must also plan from the beginning on how to take care of winning solutions so that they are given the best possible conditions to become a reality after the hackathon has ended.

A good example of a traditional hackathon is the Hack for Sweden 2018 in-person hackathon, which took place at Norrsken House in Stockholm in April 2018. The following image is a picture of one of the winning teams on stage during the prize ceremony.

Figure 1.1 The prize ceremony of Hack for Sweden 2018

The image here shows the winners of the Hack for Sweden Cup, Team Match Yourself, receiving a prize sum of 40.000SEK and praise from the audience. The winners are being cheered on by jury member Susanne Fuglesang, far left, and moderator Elsa Landberg, far right.

An example of a non-traditional hackathon

An example of a non-traditional hackathon is Hack for Earth at the world exhibition Expo 2020. Challenges were carefully created over 6 months in the Dream for Earth campaign, involving partner organizations and citizens from 121 countries. This way, the challenges had a firm foundation in relevant and accurate real-life problems, and the participants of the hackathon were already invested in the hackathon when it began and felt ownership of the challenges. This ensured that they were committed to doing their best and allocated enough time to deliver on the hackathon. The Dream for Earth campaign was also created to attract a different set of participants to the hacker teams, with a wider set of competencies, skills, and experiences than a traditional hackathon attracts. To share your dream for Earth is a task anyone can do, not only tech-savvy people, and this also attracted participants with the right sustainability profile that we were looking for. The Dream for Earth campaign was a communication strategy to lower the bar for participation in a hackathon for people with other skill sets than technical and throw a wider net to engage people with a relevant but different set of competence than tech.

The Hack for Earth at Expo 2020 hackathon was also non-traditional in the sense that it entailed a 6-month online acceleration program for the winning solutions that started right after the hackathon ended – the Build for Earth program. Build for Earth was created to support the winning solutions to come to life, either as start-ups or through the support of one or more of the partner organizations (government agencies or companies). This ensured that the winning solutions were given the best possible conditions to evolve into working tools addressing challenges in the hackathon.

To summarize, there are benefits to both the traditional and the non-traditional hackathon setup. The traditional setup can certainly deliver on many goals set, but it has limited scope and impact. The non-traditional setup of a hackathon is a more complex endeavor, but in return, your outcome will deliver a wider set of goals with a greater innovation height.

Internal versus external hackathon

Whether you are organizing a traditional or non-traditional hackathon, you also have the choice to organize it within your organization or in collaboration with external customers, partners, and citizens.

The purpose and outcome of an internal hackathon will be different from an external hackathon in the sense that you will own the solutions of an internal hackathon and can then freely decide what to do with them afterward. You can exercise control to a larger extent over challenges, participants, and outcomes with an internal hackathon. The benefit of an internal hackathon includes encouraging cross-department collaboration, which can easily be arranged by letting hacker teams form cross-department-wise. This will strengthen communication between departments internally in your organization and lay the foundation for alignment of the organization’s vision among employees. The purpose of an internal hackathon is often to find solutions to challenges that are only relevant to your organization, so you have the opportunity to dig deeper into issues that might not be of interest to a wider audience but are of high relevance to you.

The advantage of an external hackathon is that you can use the hackathon and its outcome as a tool to communicate on a deeper level with your audience, customers, partners, and community. You engage and learn from your external partners and build your brand at the same time. An external hackathon is more complex, with more moving parts and groups of people to communicate with, but the returns will be greater. You will also be perceived as an organization willing to take social responsibility when inviting to an external hackathon, and the hackathon experience alone will make people’s perceptions of your organization shift. Challenges can be cocreated by enticing your customers and partners, and in addition to creating challenges that have a firm foundation in real life, you will gain insights into what your customers and partners would like to improve. And you are doing in it a fun way.

Understanding the scope of open data in hackathons

Some would argue that a hackathon is not a hackathon without open data resources available and that the entire idea of a hackathon revolves around data. This is how the concept of a hackathon came about, using different data resources and combining them in new ways to create innovative solutions to a challenge. This could be executed within an organization or, as in the example of Hack for Sweden, with many organizations offering the hacker teams their datasets and APIs. I often get the question of what kind of data we need for the hackathon at hand, and I always answer that the question is not possible to answer. True innovation knows no boundaries, and therefore it is impossible to say what kind of data should be offered to the hacker teams. Open data sources need to be well organized and sufficient for the task at hand, but data that may seem irrelevant to the naked eye may trigger a great idea for a solution in a hacker team.

So, should you provide your hacker teams with open data or not? The answer depends on what you wish for them to build during the hackathon and, ultimately, what kind of solutions you wish to see. If you are looking for tech solutions only, the answer is obvious, but what if you are looking for a wider spectrum of solutions to complex challenges your organization is struggling with? Then, it is wiser to open up to other types of solutions that are not built on data and that may not be technical at all.

There are tons of open data sources that are published and not being used. If your organization has data of its own, make it accessible to your hacker teams and see what they will come up with during a hackathon, and offer them to combine it with other available data sources accessible outside of your organization. The important part is to offer data sources and APIs in one specific space so that it is easily accessible for the hacker teams to find what they are looking for. The data also needs to be amply described so that it is easy to navigate between the data sources.

Tip

During the hackathon, we recommend that you have mentors available to support the hacker teams when navigating and choosing data sources. If possible, this means that there is one mentor for every organization that has provided data sources to contact and ask necessary questions. This will ensure that the data is used properly and applied in the solutions.

Core values driving the movement

At the Hack for Earth Foundation, we have three core values: sustainability, diversity, and impact. Everything we do is permeated by these values, and together with our mission to create real solutions to the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), they make up the foundation by which we operate. The reason why these three core values are of such importance will be discussed next in further detail.

In a world where global challenges are increasing in complexity and severity by the minute, the core value of sustainability is inevitable. To run your organization in a sustainable way and to communicate openly what your organization is doing to make this planet a better place to live on is not only the right thing to do – it is good business. Any organization that does not have a sustainability agenda of some kind will find it hard to do business in the future, simply because everyone else has a sustainability focus.

Diversity is, in our definition, the key to success when you are working with innovation. It is when people with diverse sets of competencies, backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, and ages come together that truly innovative solutions are born. Homogenous groups tend not to be innovative, due to the simple fact that they are too much alike in their mindset and way of thinking. Science shows that diversity in teams is linked to higher levels of innovation capacity, and a hackathon is, of course, a setting where you are looking to increase levels of innovation as much as possible. When creating your hacker teams for the hackathon, encourage mixing different backgrounds, competencies, genders, and ages. It is also a good idea to include diversity in teams in your jury criteria if the creation of hacker teams is done by the teams themselves. If you know that diversity in the team is a factor you will be judged upon, this will make teams strive for diversity in team constellations. You can also decide to form teams yourself, which will, of course, give you more control over hacker teams.

Note

To understand in greater detail how diversity can spearhead innovation, you can visit this link: https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~misha/DIReadingSeminar/Papers/Hewlett14.pdf.

Impact is the third, and to some degree, most important value. To strive for impact means that what you do should have a concrete outcome. For us at the Hack for Earth Foundation, it means that we take action on our goals and that we do what we say we will do. The value of impact cannot be overestimated; it is imperative that the hackathons we deliver result in solutions that are made into real tools that deliver real value for people and the planet. Without real impact and solutions that have become real tools, a hackathon is just another meeting: people saying great things but no real outcome. This is why the core value of impact is so important. The Build for Earth acceleration program is the tangible result of these values – a 6-month acceleration program with the primary focus on making winning solutions come to life.

Together, these three core values to keep in mind when you execute your hackathon will ensure that your hackathon is sustainable, diverse, and impactful. A hackathon can highlight all these three values in a more tangible way for the people joining the hackathon, and it can most effectively be communicated as proof of your organization’s commitment to these core values. A hackathon is a hands-on way to show the world, your customers, and your employees that you not only talk about your core values – you take action on them.

Summary

In this introductory chapter, we have discussed how the hackathon tool can be reinvented as a tool for impact, creating changes for several levels of an organization’s functioning as well as creating real solutions to perceived challenges. We have covered how different types of hackathons can deliver different kinds of value for your organization and how the outcome can be valuable for your organization. We briefly covered how to design your hackathon for impact and how data can drive a hackathon’s purpose. These topics will be further developed in Chapters 2 and 3. Lastly, we briefly covered how your core values can be integrated into the hackathon process and discussed how this has been done in Hack for Earth hackathons.

In the following chapter, we will dive deeper into the prospects and possibilities of the concept of citizen-driven innovation to improve your business. You will learn how to incorporate your organization’s vision and purpose in a hackathon setting and tap into the power of citizen-driven innovation. We will start off by defining citizen-driven innovation and why it is a superpower to drive your business – no matter what the purpose is!

2

Making Citizen-Driven Innovation Work for You

In this chapter, you will learn how to make citizen-driven innovation work for you and your organization and understand the core values that lie behind the concept of citizen-driven innovation. The purpose of this chapter is to paint the bigger picture of the ideas fueling citizen-driven innovation, with the overall goal being that you will start imagining what the core values of your own organization are that could drive citizen-driven innovation for you. By describing the process of how the concept came about, you will attain an understanding of how citizen-driven innovation can fuel your organization’s growth.

The chapter will cover the following topics:

Understanding citizen-driven innovationSense of urgencyMassive transformative purposeRedefining democracy for the 21st centuryManifesting core values with the Dream! Hack! Build! method

The concept of citizen-driven innovation can be explained through two examples from real life, the Dream for Earth campaign at the Expo 2020 world exhibition in Dubai, and the Dream for Sweden campaign in 2019 for Hack for Sweden 2019. Both campaigns were open to the public and invited citizens to share their dreams for the future. Moreover, citizen-driven innovation will be described with the driving forces behind it: a sense of urgency, massive transformative purpose, and the concept of democracy. The three essential elements of citizen-driven innovation – Dream! Hack! Build! – will be described, and we will walk you through how you can use it in your own organization.

Understanding citizen-driven innovation

Citizen-driven innovation refers to the process where citizens actively participate in the innovation process, contributing ideas, solutions, and actions to address societal, community, or environmental challenges. This approach leverages the collective intelligence, skills, and experiences of the public to co-create innovations that are more inclusive, sustainable, and aligned with the needs and values of the community. Citizen-driven innovation often involves collaboration between citizens, government, NGOs, and private entities, employing tools such as crowdsourcing, participatory design, and open innovation platforms to engage a wide range of stakeholders in the problem-solving process.

Our journey with citizen-driven innovation

Our journey into citizen-driven innovation took its first steps with the government-backed initiative Hack for Sweden, an endeavor that laid the groundwork for what was to become a more expansive and impactful vision with the Hack for Earth Foundation hackathons. The pivot toward this direction of innovation was propelled by a clear and pressing necessity – the same necessity that has historically been the precursor to invention and progress. Our mission was shaped by the imperative to evolve the hackathon concept, to transform it into a vessel for generating superior solutions marked by a higher degree of innovation.

The catalyst for this evolution was the observation that outcomes from traditional hackathons were not soaring to the desired levels of innovative excellence. To address this shortfall, it became clear that a comprehensive reassessment of the hackathon model was essential. The participants, though skilled and driven, were a homogeneous group; they were culled from the same familiar pools of talent. The term “hacker” had become synonymous with individuals who frequently participated in hackathons – usually drawn from the realms of technology, including professions such as programmers, IT specialists, and other technical experts.

To elevate the results of our hackathons and reach new heights of innovation, we recognized the need to diversify our recruitment strategies. Attracting a broader array of participants became paramount. We began seeking individuals with varied backgrounds, not just from the tech sphere, to become the new “hackers” – the thinkers, the creatives, the activists, and the dreamers – who could contribute fresh perspectives and disparate skills to our hackathons.

Furthermore, the challenges presented at hackathons required a grander vision. They needed to be more than just problems seeking solutions; they had to embody a purpose, an aspiration to not just innovate for the sake of innovation but to genuinely contribute to the betterment of society. The hackathons needed challenges that were both visionary in their scope and grounded in the potential for real-world impact.

This