Hackday is now a well-established, and very much appreciated, internal event at Kindred Group. The set-up is easy: you find some teammates, agree upon a problem you would like to solve or an idea you'd like to evolve and set the timer for 24 hours!
What started as an initiative for Stockholm office employees only, has now grown into an international effort across Kindred. We now have teams representing all our major hubs, coming together to work collectively on the task. The winning team of the 9th round of Hackday is 'Green bananas' and consists of Dusan Stevanovic, Nemanja Mitrovic and Zeljko Nedeljkovic.
We had the pleasure to talk to Zeljko about the choosing of the Team-name, their idea and if Hackday actually is as fun as they say it is.
Hi Zeljko, what made you participate in Hackday?
This was our first time participating in Hackday. It seemed like a fun activity to partake in! We also had a couple of ideas we thought could be fun to explore and would be useful to Kindred.
How did you form your team?
We used to play basketball together, so it was kind of a natural progression, from the basketball team to the Hackday team.
What was the meaning behind your team’s name?
Since we are not green and we certainly aren’t bananas, the name was perfect.
Is there a difference attending Hackday while working from home?
For sure. The crunch was there, but without junk food, soda and having fun in person.
Can you explain your idea and contribution?
The idea was to get information about team members in the easiest possible manner. Since we use Microsoft Teams as the main communication tool, it was natural to try to include it. Also, Nemanja remembers long-gone days of Alfred (an old chatbot), and we wanted to recreate some of the functionalities.
Why do you think your team won?
I think we had an idea that could be useful to developers and would make our lives easier.
Which other team impressed you and why?
Since I’m an avid gamer, I liked twitch integration and achievement system.
What was the hardest and the easiest part of participating in Hackday?
The hardest part was the short amount of time and a lot of things we had in mind to do.
Getting data from different sources and testing. Also, integration with MS Teams was a bit tricky. The easiest part was writing actual code.
What was the funniest part?
MS Teams webhooks not working due to a weird format.
Would you consider participating again?
For sure, it was a great experience and I’m looking forward to participating again.
Any tips and tricks you can share with future participants of Hackday?
Plan your work, don’t be afraid to cut features for time constraints. The product doesn’t need to be perfect. Have fun and stay hydrated.
