Back in 2020 we were seeking to create new opportunities for young professionals to engage with us in a new and different way. We decided to create a flagship global competition that would enable young professionals to develop and test their technical skills.
The Hackathon Challenge 2022 was devised and delivered by the IET Young Professionals Committee (YPC), supported by volunteers from around the globe as well as IET staff members.
The volunteer leading the project was Rob Allison, Senior Systems Design Engineer at MBDA, who joined the YPC in October 2020 as the Technical Networks (TNs) representative.
Topic selection
Soon after taking on his YPC role, Rob seized the opportunity to become Volunteer Project Lead for the Hackathon Challenge. He said: “Going global was a no-brainer for us. The IET is a global institution and we wanted to encourage members and non-members from around the world to take part, so why impose geographical constraints?
“We decided to align the competition theme with one of the IET’s five Societal Challenges: Sustainability and Climate Change. Our next task was to select the topic. We were determined to approach sustainability from a completely different angle, one that would resonate with young people working in the technology sphere, so we decided to shine a light on ‘dirty data’.
“We coined this term to describe the carbon footprint of the internet, the gadgets that rely on it and the data centres full of computer servers that process the world’s data requests. The servers need constant cooling, a process which generates a phenomenal amount of carbon emissions.”
Event planning
Around 12 months into the planning process, the competition rationale and structure had taken shape:
- value proposition – a unique, collaborative learning and development opportunity with a chance of winning an all-expenses-paid trip to London and £2,000
- challenge – to generate an innovative and novel solution for reducing carbon emissions generated by data usage
- two competition streams – Infrastructure and Software
- teams – to comprise three to six members aged between 18 and 35, collaborating in person or virtually during the Hackathon event
- phase 1 (participant development) – four training videos were available for entrants to view during a two-week period in the run-up to the main event. Two were existing IET soft-skills resources on communication, project management and planning. And two were informative videos, created and delivered by IET volunteers specifically for the Hackathon: Design Thinking (Ivan Ling) and Measuring Impact (Tobi Elusakin)
- phase 2 (24-hour Hackathon Challenge) – each team was tasked with developing a solution, explaining it in a 10-minute video and submitting a two-page report expanding on the video content
- judging criteria – innovation, technical complexity (explained simply), impact on sustainability and commercial feasibility.
Logistical challenge
Having established the competition framework, Rob teamed up with fellow YPC members Kamilla Aliakhmet and Dilani Selvanathan, along with IET staff members Lizzie Truett and Lydia Vaton. Together they fleshed out the event structure, then defined and allocated key tasks.
Our many networks – including the YPC, YP Ambassadors, On Campus groups and TNs – then actively promoted the competition to the technical community, including on social media. They did an excellent job.
Rob said: “We were expecting to attract between 25 and 30 teams, but we ended up with 86 teams registering for the event. In all, there were 334 competitors from all over the world, including the UK, India, Australia, Japan, Canada, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Pakistan. To me, this confirms that we hit the sweet spot between the hot topic of sustainability and the innovative, fast-paced tech industry.”
Given the huge response, the project team had to work fast to upscale the competition logistics. Thankfully IET volunteers from around the world were more than willing to help. Within a matter of weeks, all roles had been successfully allocated, including four UK-based engineers to host a live Q&A session during the event; 15 volunteers located in different time zones, ready to answer any queries that might arise during the Hackathon; and 24 judges on standby.
Hitch-free delivery
The live 24-hour Hackathon Challenge began on 24 September 2022 at 09:00 (British Summer Time) and small teams around the world started working feverishly to develop their solution. Yun-Hang Cho, Chair of the Young Professionals Group for our Aerospace TN, was one of five engineering professionals on the panel for a one-hour Live Q&A, around six hours into the event.
He said: “Our diverse project experiences meant that we were able to provide feedback from different perspectives and foresee many possibilities and risks. Our input helped the competitors to reflect on their work and form stronger bonds within their own team.”
At the halfway mark, the organisers lobbed in a ‘curved ball’: as an additional requirement, the teams had to measure the sustainability impact of their solution. This new element provided an opportunity for teams to put into practice what they had learned from the two bespoke videos that were available during phase one of the competition.
“It was a very tough challenge,” said Rob. “So tough, in fact, that only 12 teams completed it.”
High-quality solutions
The judges were super-impressed with the quality, ingenuity and diversity of the 12 completed entries submitted, each of which demonstrated considerable knowledge about data-related emissions.
Canada’s Emily Hicks said: “I volunteered to be a judge because I love seeing new, creative ideas, especially ones geared towards sustainability and combating climate change. The judging process took several hours. It was great fun to see the different ways teams chose to tackle the problem – the breadth of ideas was very exciting. I also really enjoyed watching the videos of the teams explaining their solution and demonstrating their teamwork.”
Selecting the top two teams was a very difficult task, but ShockSoc and Data Solvers emerged victorious. “The winners stood out because they delivered confident, clear and entertaining video presentations that evidenced their collaborative approach,” said Rob, who was a member of the judging panel.
“They had both developed a robust technical and entrepreneurial business case for their solution. It really hammered home the sustainability side of things and showed that they understood the engineering requirements and the sustainability problem.”
On 12 December, at the IET Young Professionals Summit in London, the two winning teams each stepped onto the stage to accept their £2,000 prize.
Rob said: “I would like to thank every single entrant, volunteer and staff member for contributing their time, energy, ideas and commitment to this competition – including all those who were on standby and weren’t needed on the day. It turned out to be a tremendously exciting event that we hope to repeat!”