Note: Efio has rebranded as Tech Chapter in May 2023. The following blog post has been produced before the name change and therefore Tech Chapter will be mentioned as Efio in this post.
TL;DR When you see the world as code like we do efio is a fantastic place to work. Perks include working with newest tools and technologies, with challenging projects, hanging out with colleagues who have minds that think a like — And then we have our yearly Hackathons, which is where we really get to play and be creative with projects we have come up with ourselves. At efio we say that when you hire an efio consultant you get a whole team — This is one of the ways we build that bond.
The projects we work with for clients are super interesting; we get to work with the new tools, challenge our creativity, build some smart solutions, fix stuff, make it work better, make it work even better, and so on — Those are projects for our clients.
At discussions over lunch, we often end up debating if existing systems and flows we use in our daily lives could be made even smarter. These projects are what many of us wish to get our fingers on, but never really get to, because we are busy doing other stuff; internal projects are not prioritized and all sorts of other “good” excuses.
That’s where Hackathons come in. Time is set aside in our calendars to work on all the fun stuff — projects we have come up with ourselves, projects that directly give meaning to our everyday life. Time we use to build a system or features to an existing, which could hopefully make our lives even more fun and/or easy.
And if nothing else, we get to do what we love, learn to work together, have fun and quite often, enjoy a beer or two while doing it.
Examples of a few projects we have worked on at past Hackathons:
- In 2021 Marielyst, Falster Project: E-mail tracking
- In 2020 Corona kept us home, no exciting trip was made 🙁
- In 2019 efio job application / treasure hunt: docker run efio/jobs
- In 2018 Barcelona: Air quality tracker using Raspberry Pi components, License plate recognition, and lookup using Haar Cascades and OCR
How we do Hackathons at efio
Prior to a hackathon taking place, everyone is able to submit and pitch their idea(s). Eventually, a votation is set up on Slack — the voting runs for a certain amount of time after which the ideas having the most traction are taken into account for the upcoming hackathon.
Next up we find a time, duration, and location for the Hackathon. This can vary from a couple of days to an entire week, dependent on the projects selected. Location as well, from a simple weekend at one of our offices, multiple days spend at a summerhouse in Marielyst (pool & BBQ included), and in 2018 we spend most of a week in Barcelona!
We use Hackathons for internal teambuilding and to integrate new and future members into our team — But just as important, we learn to work together as the efio team.
Hackathons at Efio are always a combination of professional and social. We could start a day attending an online conference and end the days with a BBQ, go-carting, pool-time, and/or dine´n´drink time.
Quite often it happens that a family member or two drops by which helps give a feeling that we are not all about work.
When have you last participated in a hackathon?