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Τί είναι τα Hackathons και γιατί δεν χρειάζεται να πας σε κάποιαIn recent years there has been an exponential increase in Hackathons all over the world, and of course Greece could not be an exception to this trend. But what are Hackathons, how did they start, how did they develop over time and where do they seem to be heading?

The word Hackathon is a neologism derived from the words Hack + Marathon (Marathon), with the word "Hack" meaning "exploratory programming" rather than illegal online activity as it has come to be understood nowadays. Hackathon or hack day or hackfest refers to an event lasting usually 24-48 hours in which programmers and in general people who in one way or another belong to the field of information technology and telecommunications (ICT) meet and collaborate in the design and implementation of original ideas. These ideas can move in a specific direction defined by the organizers, from creating games to robotics and from health to the environment and improving our daily lives in the city. In other cases, the goal of the Hackathon itself may be to create innovative applications that could be exploited commercially. A Hackathon can also revolve around a specific technology, programming language, Framework, Operating System, API, etc., or even be organized by a company to improve its products - after all, Hackathons are also organized from time to time by large companies such as Microsoft, Facebook or formerly Yahoo! etc. The "Like" button as well as the Facebook Chat are representative examples of the results of an "internal" Hackathon of the company.

The idea of "getting together and making something creative, essentially doing our hobby, meeting more people and having fun" is obviously not new. In the IT industry in particular, it has been around almost as long as home computers have existed. One of the most popular examples of such "events" is the meetings of the famous Homebrew Computer Club in San Francisco in the mid-70s, where many prominent IT pioneers, such as the founders of Apple, came from. Functioning essentially as a computer forum, hobbyist electronic engineers and technologists met to get to know each other better and to exchange knowledge, know-how and even improvised circuits and spare parts, at a time when standards in computer construction were more or less non-existent and such occupation was quite sophisticated. This was perhaps the reason why the practice of informal "Hackathons" did not particularly thrive, since the existence of many different construction standards and the incompatibility between them created enough problems throughout the 80's and into the early 90's when IBM's and Apple's manufacturing standards prevailed.

However, the word "Hackathon" was coined a little later, specifically in 1999 when it was used both by the creators of the OpenBSD Operating System for a cryptographic software development event, and by the Sun company for that year's "JavaOne" Conference, where the participants were asked to develop a program for the Palm V (PDA of the time). Since then, the idea of Hackathons has spread and steadily evolved around the globe, now numbering thousands of events and millions of participants every year. In Greece, especially in the last two years, there has been an increase in Hackathons from various bodies (public and private), gathering great interest and creating great expectations as to how much they can play the role of a driving force for the development of innovation and entrepreneurship in Greece during the crisis ( of course, there is also a big counterargument here, which I will analyze thoroughly below...).

hackathon

Modern Hackathons

Today, Hackathons typically attract a young audience, seniors or recent graduates from ICT schools who want to start networking in the field, meet and collaborate with colleagues and like-minded people, learn about new technologies, work in a team, get in touch with the needs of the job market and familiarize themselves with its requirements, build their portfolio and test their capabilities by doing what they love most... writing code! Of course, although not a rule in Hackathons, they are usually competitive in nature, with the best team or teams presenting the "best" program at the end of the event and winning some kind of prize. The prize can be monetary or "reciprocal" - it's not uncommon for some organizers to help the winning team found a startup company to promote what they've built as a product, or for that team to be "absorbed" by an already established company wishing to fund product development. A typical example is the GroupMe application, where it was developed in the context of a Hackathon at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2010, only to be acquired by Skype just a year later at a price of 85 million dollars.

Participating in Hackathons is indeed a tedious process, but it provides great experience and knowledge to the participants. There are even a few people who declare themselves "addicted" to Hackathons, not necessarily for the pursuit of prizes and distinctions (although it is always a good motivation to participate), but for the atmosphere of the Hackathon itself... a community of people with the same interests who meet and collaborate to do something creative, operating under deadline pressure, consuming copious amounts of caffeine and pizza, and often not having the luxury of more than a few minutes of sleep throughout the Hackathon. The closer they get to their goal, the more the adrenaline, the anxiety and the excitement that comes from the progress and the performances on an individual and collective level increases. Especially when there is also the prospect of a participant finding work in his field, the desire to give his best is undeniably great.

photo: NASA Space Apps Hackathon @ Berkeley

What's not to like about it?!

The goal of any open and independent (in the sense that it is not directly linked to the identity or products of any company) Hackathon in general is (or should be) to find solutions to small or large problems or challenges of society, or otherwise of the everyday life of the world. No app will change the world, but the goal deserves to be just that. Therefore, the "fruits" of a Hackathon should return directly and entirely to society, at least with what this entails in terms of open source, open data, inclusive design, etc.

But what happens when these solutions are reaped by the companies behind the organization of a Hackathon? If one looks at the topics and organizers of Hackathons in Greece in recent years, one will almost immediately see that behind the biggest Hackathons are profitable multinational companies, business groups and organizations with so much profit that they could very well develop the same products and solutions themselves, either by utilizing their existing human resources (in-house) or by outsourcing the design and development of such solutions to other companies (outsourcing). However, calculating the required working hours, the related costs and, finally, the total possible cost of such an undertaking, one understands that a Hackathon is much more profitable, since the cost of the organization is very small and the "human resources" are free! Accordingly, the design of the solutions and the implementation of a "working prototype" (or demo), which in any other case would have the highest cost, in the case of Hackathon is also almost free.

"Almost free" because of course there are also the prizes given to the first three winners. But let's look at some examples of such awards:

- The prizes of the Cosmote Hackathon organized in May 2017, were 5.000 euros in total to the first team, a mobile phone together with VR equipment for the members of the second team as well as gift vouchers worth 300 euros to the members of the third team. That is, the OTE group, which in 2016 had a turnover of 3.9 billion euros and a net profit of 230 million, organized a Hackathon that probably did not even exceed 15-20.000 euros in cost, but its value in terms of ideas and implementations that could be potential products of the group, was invaluable.

exploitation vs opportunity- The prizes of the Crowdhackathon #Insurance held in October 2016 on the topic of application development (Minimum Viable Products – MVP) and operational innovation in the field of insurance did not exceed 5,000 euros in total for the first three winners (specifically the first prize was at 2.000 euros, the second at 1.500 euros and the third at 1.000 euros). Indicatively, the net profits of the insurance company sector in 2015 exceeded 300 million euros. In the same year, the insurance sector was declared the second leader in revenue in Greece based on Return on Equity, with the first being -of course- the Banking/Factoring sector.

- Speaking of banks, clearly the banking sector could not be left out of this exploitation "party", with the National Bank of Greece organizing a Hackathon in April 2016 and a second one in October 2017, "as part of the wider Bank's strategy for the development of partnerships with new, innovative and creative companies and groups in the field of fintech". It would be provocative not to give such an incentive to the participants, since in these cases too the value of the three prizes did not exceed 10,000 euros. To contrast this amount with NBG's profits and also with the possible profits from the conversion of the resulting applications into banking products, I think, would be insultingly hypocritical.

In the context of planning a company's strategy, it is obvious that the first priority is by definition to maximize profits while minimizing costs. And it's not hard to imagine how a Hackathon might fit that definition. However, it is just as easy to conclude from the above that Hackathons aim to exploit and "capture" ideas and participants, even if the pretext is "innovation" and "entrepreneurship". Even if the "cheese" is a potential future job for the participant. A person's know-how, talent and ability to design and implement innovative ideas is not a simple thing and it certainly does not characterize everyone. Therefore, it must be utilized to the maximum by society and rewarded handsomely by businesses. Accordingly, on the part of each participant, the criteria for participation in a Hackathon should not be limited to the "challenge" of an exhausting but particularly creative two-day event where someone will have the opportunity to collaborate with people, get to know new technologies, test ones' strength, etc etc etc.

As a potential participant (or even just a visitor) in Hackathons, a key participation criterion you should have is who is organizing it and for what reason. If you believe that the goals of the Hackathon are noble and that the surplus value of your work (because it is work in essence and it is good not to forget that) will work in the most direct way possible for the benefit of society, then no not only is it worth going, but you also deserve to be congratulated in advance for participating, since, for better or worse, the benefit of society as a whole often seems to be the last priority of most professionals. If, on the other hand, you judge that the surplus value of your labor is likely to bring more profit to the organizing company than to society, then you do not need to support and perpetuate this exploitation mentality. Just don't go.

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