In the spring of 2018, we joined forces with the Hungarian team of one of the leading energy service providers of Europe, E.ON Hungary.
Within a couple of weeks, we organized two very different but successful hackathons for our partner, which illustrated the diversity of the company’s business challenges and its openness towards innovative solutions from outside.
Take care of the bird! hackathon
Challenge: Innovative solutions to reduce the number of bird fatalities due to medium voltage cables
- 8 participants
- 24 hours
The company’s goal was to get know talented university students and to find a solution to a a serious environmental challenge. Competitors had to come up with ideas with a variety of technological and legal constraints. Finally, a team of architects has taken the first prize, proving that the best solution often comes from other fields and from other perspectives. The idea competition achieved its goals: strengthened E.ON’s reputation and implemented the given solutions. This topic also had a significant PR value because E.ON showed that he was making a great effort to solve an environmental problem.
Challenge.ON hackathon
Challenges:
- smart home applications
- increase Customer Engagement
- The consumer of the future
During the the second hackathon of E.ON participants could work with 27 mentors, including E.ON staff. E.ON’s primary goal was to find young talents, and this goal was also met: potential new employees could be contacted and the company became more familiar with the startup world. The Hackathon format is a perfect match when a company wants to become noticeable for young talents and entrepreneurs. As a result of 24-hour trials, competitors have got a lot of knowledge about HRs, which is not revealed during a simple job interview. In addition, potential employees need to get to know more about the company’s employees, which increases their commitment to the company.
Results: E.ON started to negotiate with the teams creating the first three-placed concepts of the hackathons and the company offered product development and innovation intern positions to several participants.
