The Hackathon for Good wants to bring together experienced professionals, proactive startups, as well as junior participants and students. We have identified that teams can vary greatly at their entry level and we have curated a series of methods, tools and resources to help each and everyone to present themselves in the best way possible and have a fair chance for the hackathon prizes and follow-up opportunities.

This 4th Hackathon for Good - The Hague edition introduces an extended Support programme and our new Hackathon for Good platform.

What is the Support programme for participants?

The Support programme is a 4-week guide that consists of meetups, weekly selection of recommended activities, challenge resources, designated online team collaboration boards, feedback Q&A open-hours and exclusive 1-on-1 sessions to reach out to the challenge owner of your topic.

Each week has a theme:

• Analyze (1st-7th of Nov)
  
  + Focused on understanding the problem and the target groups in order to carve out the direction of your team going into the challenge.
  + Data for Good event (2nd of Nov) with hands on workshops on the data set samples and tools
  
• Ideate (8th-14th of Nov)
  
  - Handy triggers to expand your pool of ideas and easy access to all tech services and tools.
  + Brainstorm meetup
  
• Concept & Test (15th-21st of Nov)
  
  + Guiding your team into making ideas tangible and feasible for early prototyping. 
  + Concept & Test meetup
  
• Convince (22nd-26th of Nov)
  
  + Elevating your concept into a business case with a wow-factor pitch. 
  + 1-on-1 sessions with challenge owners

Who is it for and how does it work?

The support programme is only for registered participants and participation in all activities leading up to the hackathon weekend (26th-28th of Nov) is optional. You and your team can select what materials are most valuable to your process and professional development.

Whether you are part of an experienced startup or just starting to explore your professional skill set, our selection of creative and verified  methods will accelerate your progress and get you prize-ready.

The structure of the activities per week on the collaboration team boards is aimed to assist you in developing the solution. You will follow four steps of the concept development by using different approaches and methods.

Each segment on the board indicates a level of priority : high, medium, and low. You can choose whether to do all of the steps or focus on the most important ones. On each step there is an estimated duration. It will help you to estimate how much time you need to spend to complete the method. It is fine if your team needs more or less time per method. The most important thing is not to do it in time but to gain value from it. Some of the methods are also accompanied by video examples and tips and tricks to make you stand out. You will find more information about the methods as well as inspiration on the board itself once you are selected as a participant within a team.

If you find yourself in need of feedback or assistance with any of the resources, our Support team will be available for questions and consultation during an open hour Q&A time slot every Friday in November (11:30-12:30 CET).

What can you get out of it?

The mix of design thinking steps and data science practices can benefit you by:

• bringing you together as a team
• improving your personal professional skills
• taking you through the key stages of the iterative design and development process
• providing additional insights for your selected challenge
• helping you to get started faster with tools and data sets
• triggering you to think outside the box
• preparing you for the solution deliverables and crucial considerations
• increasing your chances for a successful follow up of your idea

Data for Good event

Get a sneak peak into the tools and datasets available for the challenges of 2021. The Data for Good is open to both registered and potential participants and it aims to introduce you to the Hackathon for Good team and resources.

2nd of Nov 16:00 with hands-on breakout workshops:

• Mothership & ESRI on Remote sensing
• RHEA Group & Climate Action Center on Concurrent Design Modelling
• UbiOps & AskAnna on AI

Register here

What is the Hackathon for Good platform?

During the 4th edition of Hackathon for Good The Hague, we bring to life our own pilot platform.

This online environment is tailored to your needs, providing a single source of information and easy access to all benefits of the programme and network.

The platform is an invite-only portal for participants to come together and interact within teams, to reach out to facilitators, mentors and challenge owners, and to stay up to date with all activities and resources.

This will be a gateway to all follow up opportunities as well as next editions of the hackathon.

If you are registered as a participant, you will be onboarded starting from the 25th of October.

If you want to join our community, register and select a challenge.

To check out the mentors and jury for this edition follow our LinkedIn announcements.

Support programme for experts: Mentors & Jury

Next to the added value and assistance of teams on their way to tech- and SDG-oriented solutions, we provide support to experts who are interested in fostering innovation and co-creation.

Over the month of November, we provide briefing, platform onboarding activities and a mentor and jury check-in to build our community. We believe that sharing experiences and providing an open space for interaction can enable both hackathon-veterans and first-time experts wishing to take on the mentor and jury roles.

If you would like to support or evaluate the teams’ solutions, please contact  delilah@hackathonforgood.org to learn more about each role.

What follows after the hackathon weekend?

Taking part in the Support programme of the hackathon will give you direct exposure to our network of facilitators, mentors and challenge owners. Additionally, the better you perform at the hackathon, the higher the chances to receive a bonus prize or follow up opportunities from our challenge owners and partners.

The Support programme and your platform account are also a gateway to stay updated for the next international editions of the Hackathon for Good as well as all WorldStartup and partner initiatives.