Hackathons
The jewel in the WD Events crown - delivering Hackathon-style events is in our companies DNA and remains the heart of what we have to offer today.
Our tailer-made events can be adapted to suit your numbers, capability levels, and personal goals, but generally our typical hackathon flows something like:
Monday
The focus is all team building and norming - if it hasn't already been done, some icebreakers to introduce each other, idea/project selection and early scoping and direction setting. Making sure everyone is clear on goals and expectations is the first step in ensuring your hackathon success.
Artefacts from Monday could include a Mission Model Canvas, a Ways of Working document, or even some application wireframes in tools like Figma.
Delegate skills will focus on critical thinking and empathy whilst understanding customer needs, pains and gains.
Dream Big!
Tuesday
Primed and ready from Monday's exploration - it's time to start bringing ideas to life...
With the technology landscape opened before you, will it be something cloud native? A mobile app? A static site? Low or no code? Our team of coaches, engineers, architects and designers can coach you through beginning the journey of taking your idea from theoretical into something tangible.
Artefacts from Tuesday might be code snippets, reviews of literature, APIs, external data sets or any market competition that could be relevant. For hardware or software projects - early demos, MVPs and higher fidelity wireframes may start to emerge.
Start small...
Wednesday
As your idea starts to take shape, you'll likely start to find new blockers, or challengers you weren't expecting...
This becomes one of the key learnings from our events around how individuals handle this - do you double down on your original plan, or pivot and change the plan accordingly?
By Wednesday groups tend to be starting to capture and record more of their decision making, demonstrating broader appreciation for the technology, political and human factors of their emerging idea.
For residential events, Wednesday evening can also be a chance to encourage people to try something new - we've often held challenge nights with coding challenges - ask how something like Advent of Code, Robocode, DeepRacer or more could help improve your event.
For events focused on team building, ask about the outdoor activities we can facilitate - we have a range of coaches who are also qualified paddle sports coaches, rock climbing instructors, mountaineers and more!
Pivot!
Thursday
The last full day of the week - and generally a quieter, more focussed ambiance in the event space.
Starting to feel something like the last week of a university group project, heads are often down, keyboards are tapping away, solutions and prototypes are starting to come to life.
Through a balanced agenda, we'll also make sure there's opportunities to break away, recharge and come back to your project refreshed throughout the day.
For residential events, Thursday evening is a great chance for a final dinner together; to share and celebrate the trials, tribulations and hard work from the week. Previously we've arranged BBQs, a private zoo experience, escape rooms and more!
Build
Friday
Last chance saloon - commit everything, take a backup, and one last chance to #BeMoreWild!
Maybe it's an AI spin-off, red teaming everything from the past few days, or that wild 'what if' 10X thought you've had.
And then, to close, we typically invite groups to self-reflect, report back - often through presentations, lightning talks or other forms to share their ideas - this may just be amongst other delegates, or could be to senior sponsors, budget holders or managers depending on your requirements.
Artefacts from Friday often include reports, presentations, recorded demos, and of course any code, manufactured hardware or anything else produced during the week.
Shoot for the moon!