Large companies competing with nimble startups for talent might appreciate these comforting words:
“I personally like working within big companies,” Cassidee Sippel said. “If someone else has a goal, I’ll try my best within that company to promote their goal, because I know they have a strong vision. They know what they want, and as long as they do, I do too.”
A third-year computer science student at the University of Waterloo, Sippel took part in Waterloo Hacks through the weekend of Jan. 22-24. It was Communitech’s first hackathon, open to students at the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University.
Twenty-five student teams made it through to Sunday morning; 10 went on to pitch ideas before a panel of judges that afternoon. Sippel’s team developed HackAttack, a puzzle-like hack built on Google Tabletop.
While the event attracted men and women with startup inclinations of their own, Waterloo Hacks also set out to draw “intrapreneurs" — people who want to apply their entrepreneurial skills inside established companies. The worrying thing about launching a startup, Sippel said, is that there are a lot of them already out there. It would be tough to stand out.
Large corporations, such as Manulife and Thomson Reuters, ranked among Waterloo Hacks' major sponsors.
The idea was to introduce companies to a wealth of talent in Waterloo Region, and show students the opportunities for entrepreneurial thinking in large, corporate settings, said Saj Jamal, Communitech’s Vice-President of Marketing and Product Development.
“There are options to stay in Waterloo Region where you have this really strong ecosystem,” Jamal said. “We’re trying to solve a talent problem: there isn’t enough.”
Hackathons typically generate consumer apps. Business-to-business (B2B) is a “whole other world” open to tech students weighing employment possibilities, Jamal said.
Business-to-business applications brought a new slate of opportunities to
Waterloo Hacks participants, since hackathons typically focus on consumer
apps. (Communitech photo: Meghan Thompson)
Innovating in large companies, he added, offers some pluses, namely stable financing and established distribution networks. Eleven of the 25 teams worked on hacks directly related to Manulife.
As a career-option eye-opener, Waterloo Hacks produced some quick results.
“We have already engaged with six students from multiple teams who want to come in talk about co-op and working at RED Lab,” said Rocky Jain, who heads Manulife’s RED Lab innovation centre in the Communitech Hub. “We’re looking for non-traditional and unpredictable solutions . . . We want people to come into this environment and be unsettled.”
Working with the entrepreneurial, hack-oriented students is a learning experience for big corporations, too, Jamal said. It’s not the neat, orderly way they are used to doing things.
But RED Lab, he said, shows Manulife’s commitment to seeing what happens when comfort zones are left behind for edgier, more chaotic, environments.
Held at Velocity Start, a new, 6,000-square-foot creative space at the University of Waterloo, Waterloo Hacks moved ahead as hackathons typically do — on loads of encouragement from other students and mentors, an abundance of snacks and little sleep for participants.
RED Lab invited teams to explore how mobile or wearable technology might be used to nudge people into a healthier lifestyle. A provider of insurance products and financial services, Manulife has a stake in the well-being of Canadians.
One UWaterloo team, Group 536, developed a hack out of the Myo armband to pick up the wearer’s tempo and match it with music from his or her playlist. The armband is made by Kitchener-based Thalmic Labs.
“Two hours before the deadline I was almost convinced we wouldn’t put it together,” said Alya Berciu of Group 536. “We did, miraculously. We ran into a lot of technical difficulties. We had to start over sometimes. But we kept going. The fact that you're surrounded by people who are so focused makes it a really great environment.”
The idea took the team to a first-place finish.
Wilfrid Laurier students Vaughan Hilts and Scott King won the Thomson Reuters Challenge for Best Use of Data by creating Acre, a mobile app that tries to answer a question as old post-secondary education itself: Where should one live after graduation?
The app uses open data to come up with city suggestions based on the user’s field of study and personal interests.
On the one hand, hackathons serve as recruiting tools where students demonstrate their skills, teamwork and capacity for stress when things go wrong. “It’s real life in a weekend,” Jamal said.
On the other, said Brian Zubert, hackathons provide an opportunity for students to learn about companies and genuine business challenges that technology might address.
“We are far more interested in making sure the students are aware of what we’re doing,” said Zubert, who leads Thomson Reuters Labs in the Communitech Hub. “And we’re looking for innovation . . .When you’re coming new into a company, you have the ability to look at things in a whole new light. When you’re not intimately familiar with the problems, you have the freedom of not playing by the rules.”
Thomson Reuters, a gatherer and sharer of information for decision-makers, has an interest in how data is mined and used. Acre did well by asking the right question.
“If I have access to all these data sources, what new insights can I glean? That is literally speaking our language,” Zubert said. “That’s the vision of our lab.”
