Corpenicus Hackathon Feb 2025

So as part of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Practice course with Bala, we had to take part in a Hackathon. Now, I've only ever heard this word in Iceland! It's basically a competition to come up with an idea or proof of concept/prototype of an idea within a very short space of time, within the context given by the organisers. This particular Hackathon was about providing solutions for the ocean, be in pollution, sustainability etc. I know nothing about fishing or aquaculture or the ocean and yet here we were, 4 of us in a team, trying to come up with an idea. It was interesting to say the least. We had one Icelander in the team who knew something about 'fish farming' so we decided to hit the internet to research any gaps that Iceland may potentially have in the area of fish farming. The idea was to use the data generated by the Corpenicus Satellite to come with a digital solution using the data.  One thing I'm taking away from this experience is that you should always have at least one person who has technical expertise within the context of the Hackathon. None of my team members are good with coding of data nor did we have any computer science background. We managed to come up with an idea but we quickly realised that we could not really go beyond 'proof of concept'. It's not a bad thing in and of itself,  since new team members with the right expertise can always be incorporated for future competitions. 

It was nice to see everyone putting their all into their ideas and presentations. The winners had a fantastic idea and articulated it so well that everyone just knew they had won the prize!

What did I learn from this experience:

There is alot of information on the Internet that can be harnessed for things like this.

Everyone can be creative and can think of ideas - I knew nothing about fishing before that weekend, but after that weekend my knowledge of the various challenges around aquaculture has increased

Team work with clearly divided roles and responsibilities is important

The ability to clearly communicate your idea is key

Know your market, and know your audience

Learn how to pitch and pitch well! I think the pitch presentation was my favourite! 

I like the way the Hackathon was structured, we had presentations from other stat up companies, mentors who provided input and training on how to pitch.

I think for future Hackathons like this, it would have been nice for teams that didn't have computer/coding background to be offered further assistance so that they at least had the chance to develop their idea further, since the goal of the Hackathon was also to provide solutions. I feel if our team had some extra support in that area, we could have done much more within the time.

Overall it was a wonderful experience. Has it inspired me to try other Hackathons ? I don't think so! :)

Team Presentation:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1TPIImw3HVPQIP3GZffcpB8EVBM0XumQW1lIS5rINZ3I/edit?usp=sharing