Hacks are novel creations or solutions to problems - not always elegant, and sometimes little more than sketches or very basic prototypes - nevertheless they facilitate deep exchange among multidisciplinary teams, and often expose flaws or opportunities that are missed in other explorative methods. Hackathons are time-limited collaborative events, where people meet to tinker on data and platforms, and where "hacks" are created in response to a variety of problems or "challenges".

The events assume many different forms, but most are designed to bring researchers, engineers and other professions from various career stages and backgrounds together along topics of common interest. When the participating teams wish to use real-world data for their prototypes, a large amount of time is often invested into finding and cleaning datasets. The open data community uses hackathons - often with public sector support - to validate and improve new data sources, and create feedback loops with stakeholders.

◎ Brainstorm

1. Find out about hackathons in your chosen field, browse the challenges and results of at least one past event.
2. Make observations about how to build on top of the submitted proposals and connect to the participants.
3. How can an open platform for data events like dribdat help you to design, plan and run a hackathon?
4. What are hackathons (& characteristics thereof) that would be interesting to students, teachers, researchers, staff?
5. Is the hackathon concept transferable to other, non-digital areas? E.g. product development, prototyping, modelling, process development.

Hackathons in Large Collaborative Projects. Andrey Sadovykh et al 2019