Blog

02 May 2019

DATASETS, DRUMS AND ENERGY DRINKS

The video story of the Spark24 hackathon

On the 3rd and 4th April, 20 teams made up of people from all across the world, from every MiQ office, gathered in Bangalore for Spark24.

Spark24 was a hackathon, a competition where commercial teams worked shoulder to shoulder with data scientists, analysts and engineers to hack the solution to a business challenge - in only 24 hours.

It was an incredible event, fuelled by our passion for showing off the power of Marketing Intelligence (and a fair amount of Red Bull), with some truly exceptional winners.

Here’s the story.

The calm before the hack

Before the event began, the teams all assembled in Bangalore to make introductions, share great food and put the finishing touches on their plans. The mood was a mixture of nerves at the challenge ahead, but mostly excitement for getting started.

 

It begins…

At 4pm on Wednesday afternoon, the waiting was over and the event began. Each of the teams found their own nook, cranny or corner to work in, and got straight into the thick of things, sparking ideas to build innovative, business-driving solutions.

 

 

Past midnight

Late into the night and into the early hours, there was no thought of bed. For some of the teams it was plain sailing, but others ran into unexpected problems and had to move fast to change their ideas. Fortunately, everyone was given a boost by the raucous rhythms of the traditional Indian drummers who came by the office to keep us all sparking.

 

 

The morning after

After the feverish excitement of hacking into the small hours, the early morning mood in the office was a little tired. Lots of yawns, a few nodding heads and a couple of heads resting on desks. But strong coffee (and even more Red Bull) made sure everyone was firing for the final push.

 

And the winners are…

The judging process was, to quote one judge, “the hardest meeting I’ll have this year.” All the teams nailed it, producing brilliant ideas that solve big business challenges across our industry. But there had to be a winner… watch the video to find out the winning team.