Here at Trayport, hackathons have become part of our culture and we love them so much that we hold these a few times a year. These are the perfect venue for our people, both technically skilled and not, to use technology to creatively explore possibilities that may sit outside the scope of the day-to-day workload.
Our first hackathon of 2021 was a great success with 26 demos! And many great entries from a branching timeline of an order and related trades generated from logs to updates to our induction booker (which was originally created in a Hackathon!).
Iona Pearson
Other than the entertainment and great results our hackathons bring, here are a few reasons why we love hackathons at Trayport.
1. The Freedom To Be Creative
A hackathon gives our people the opportunity to think outside the box and try things that they aren’t able to on a day-to-day basis. For some it is just about trying new technology, setting up a project, seeing how far they get – or re-writing one of our products in a new framework. There’s no better time to put a creative idea to the test. Whether it’s something in a workflow that can be improved, a new functionality to pitch to the rest of the team, replacing an annoying piece of software or something non-work related that is just for fun, our hackathons allow our people to explore their creative ideas. The sky is the limit.
2. The Chance To Work With New Colleagues
Everyone is welcome! Which means our people get the chance to work with colleagues they don’t normally get to work with. Perhaps people from other teams, friends that they have made in the company, or maybe someone who they have never met but share an awesome idea.
3. Or The Chance To Work Alone
Then for those used to working collaboratively in a team, in pairs or in a mentoring situation, this can be the perfect time to put the earphones on and focus on one project without meetings or interruptions. The point being, our hackathon gives our people the ability to choose how they spend their time, and if they prefer to work autonomously then that is perfectly fine.
4. The Demonstrations
It is always fun to see the things coworkers can come up with and then how they demonstrate them; will they risk a live demo? Our hackathon demonstrations have been known to all be creative through the use of videos, slides, and even theme music to keep people engaged and lean the vote in their favour. Our Singapore office has even used a dramatic storyline to get viewers hooked.
5. The Vote
We love our hackathons so much that we’ve built our own tool. This was created and has been improved over many hackathons allowing us to chat about and react with emojis to the projects being demoed, vote on our favourite project, and even includes ‘applause as a service’ so that we can give a virtual round of applause without the need to awkwardly unmute and clap into our microphones, which really adds to the atmosphere, and has also been very useful while running hackathons remotely.
We’re pleased to see our first hackathon of 2021 off to a great start and are glad we have been able to keep our hackathons going throughout lockdown and remote working. They have become a highlight at Trayport and are very much a part of our culture here.
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