Four reasons to join the Hackathon

Technology has changed all the aspects of our lives

Technology has changed our personal lives and work experience. It facilitates our everyday lives by automating processes, such as our financial and insurance transactions. It gives us insights into our healthcare status and communications with governmental institutions. Not to forget direct access to all the knowledge there is on the internet. But it doesn’t stop there; our houses are becoming smarter: smart meters for the utilities, controlling appliances online, just to name a few innovations. Shopping, selecting and booking your holiday destination. It is normal for us to have access to all that technology offers 24/7.

In our companies, technology enables us to work quicker and more efficiently. And we assume that to be the new normal as we experience this in our private lives as well. Having 24/7 access, optimized processes and having it all connected to the necessary applications and devices. That is our new norm. Technology has enabled to change our lives in all aspects very quickly. And the further technology advances, the quicker you can expect the innovative changes to become the new norm.

Continuously innovate to meet demand

So, you need to continually look at ways to optimize your product and improve your user experience. New technologies such as Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, Blockchain, Conversational Interfaces, to name a few, can create new use cases through innovative technologies and as such extend the life cycle of your product. Take machine learning; this technology can be used to radically improve decision support which can simplify customer support features, or extracting structured information from the unstructured data, used for predictions or the analysis of the clinical parameters and their combination for the prognosis example prediction of disease progression.

Four reasons to join the Hackathon

So, these new technologies can give you a competitive advantage such as:

1. Extend the life cycle of your product
   Modernize your applications. Continue to stay relevant and give your users new features and experiences so that they remain happy with and faithful to your company.
2. Improve the user experience
   Make sure your users get the same feeling when using your products as when they are using their personal software.
3. Improve the processing time
   Use new technologies to drastically reduce repetitive, labor-intensive processes so you can have your knowledge workers focus on exciting tasks.
4. Remain attractive on the labor market
   This fourth one is often forgotten, but a significant reason to explore adding new features in modern technologies to an existing functioning application in old programming languages.

From technology to approach

To find out what we did last Hackathon, please click this link here. The Hackathon is an effective way to test new ideas and create prototypes. We can even help you with the next steps in the process of creating an initiative, based on best practices or Eric Ries’s ‘The Lean Startup.’ The Hackathon offers you a dedicated period for your initiative where together with the Yonder professionals plus support team (Architect, UI/UX Designer, Delivery Manager) you work towards a prototype or end-result as discussed.

And if you don’t have any ideas ….

You may think that it sounds interesting, but you don’t have time to think of any ideas that would help your customers. Well, no problem! We have a techboard and professionals who know how to apply such technologies and can think of ways you can innovate for your market segment.

By Remus Pereni
CTO Yonder

So what do we do during our Yonder Hackathon weekend? View last year’s video for an impression.