Speed Dating at SICK Solution Hackathon
The air in the room crackles with anticipation - welcome to the speed dating session of the SICK Solution Hackathon! Yes, this feels a bit like speed dating, at least the energy is similar - but this is not about finding the love of your life, this is about finding the team for this hackathon! Not romance, but innovation is the goal - but the right chemistry is always crucial. Will this be the perfect match? Will this collaboration spark something amazing? Will this be a promising innovation - or will it be over soon or just “complicated”?
“Don’t worry, it’s a process!” Claudia Leitschuh (SICK) helps all participants find the best possible team. There are post-its for every existing team and its members, as well as for all the hackers who came to the hackathon without a team, all stuck to the windows of one of the hacking areas. This makes it much easier to keep track of everything - and helps to visualize the many possibilities.
Each team takes a different amount of time to find its members - one new team is formed within minutes. It’s called “Silk Way”, and Lukasz Matysiak explains how the team came together: “I was contacted by another team through the hacker platform because I am one of the few non-technical participants here. Then I asked Katarina, who I know from another hackathon, to join us - and now we are a team!” The team now consists of Lukasz from Poland, Katarina Vuyic from Serbia, and Hanbing Qin, Yifan An, and Huicheng Gao - and they’re happy that their skills are so diverse.
Finding different skills was also important for Team “JG” - but here the idea for the hackathon itself was crucial. Avtandil Janjghava from Georgia already had a specific idea in mind and proactively approached Yuto Hirakawa, Masaya Saki, and Shunsuke Iwasaki from Japan to pitch his idea. Avtandil explains: “I just went to them and told them my idea and they liked it. Now we will sit down and discuss it. If we can’t all agree on it, it doesn’t matter - we’ll find another idea.” Anything is possible - and soon Luka Oniani from Georgia joins the team.
Sometimes it is not so much a strategy but simple coincidences that bring people together - and, of course, good communication. Daniel Martinez Guerrero started the evening before: “I just started talking to everyone in the hotel lobby - and that’s when I met Marvin!” So heformed a team with Marvin Schwarze, and this morning they just started talking with Emine Betül: “Now I am happy to be in their team.” Her other team members Antti Paasi and Leo Machenius laugh: “And now they have adopted us right here!” They all offer different skills and hope that their combination will be a success - their current name is “Notausgang” (their post-its stuck close to the sign, so that became their name). In the end, talking to each other is the simple but crucial advice for finding the right team. Emine emphasizes this: “I’m an introvert, so it’s not easy for me to talk to strangers. But I knew I had to overcome my shyness - and it worked out pretty well!”
