HackFest
magnet December 31st, 2008
Hackfest @ Magnet
Venue - Kandivali
Week - Dec: 3rd week
Time - 12 pm - 1 pm
We received Hackfest event invitation on Monday 22nd Dec 08, the event was new to most Magneteers. Nirav & Kartik initiated all preparations. Nirav and Vishal gave the background and details about the event. It was going to be an interesting event as it was not just technical crowd puller but even non technical participants were involved.
Participants were given freedom of choice in terms of the task they would take up, The best part was task could be anything that would interest you, something that was on your wishlist or something that was not part of your daily task, they could also do it in pair or individually. Everyday one could take up new task or it could be a single task for 2-3 days together as well.
What we did different this time was that we interacted with all teams & took their feedback as to what would they like to do in the Hackfest. Based on that, we created tasks for different teams & in total, we had a pool of around 200 tasks, technical & non-technical both. That’s what was liked most by people. They simply picked up tasks & used to start working.
1hour everyday, fixed time for all, everyone consciously would work on their tasks or hobbies like painting, programming, hacking, research and development and many more.
One more interesting thing was there were awards for the best work.
Those 5 days was full of fun, learning, feeling of achievement. It was indeed a heartfelt “HackFEAST”.
At the end, the feedback was that people want this hackfest to continue. Some said they wouldn’t mind participating in a 2-day hackfest as well.
