BRAVO Civic Hackathon!
If we would strictly follow definition, we could say that Hackathon is an event in which a large number of people meet to engage in collaborative problem solving. In this case, limited time is the key factor that pushes participants to think out of the box and crate faster. Hackathon isn’t quashi phenomenon, it is a real thing used by many companies in order to generate innovative solution to its problems. In the Balkans people either haven’t heard about type of an event like Hackathon or they associate this event with the IT sector even though it goes much deeper than IT, encompassing various fields of action.
A couple of weeks ago, on 25th of September BRAVO made history. As dramatic as it sounds it is true because in corporation with other influential people, we brought a taste of something new, never done before in our area with organizing 2021 BRAVO Civic Hackathon. With its implementation, we truly wanted to create a space for learning and growth, a space that would challenge young people and push them to take risk with their innovative ideas.
As already said, Hackathon doesn’t aim at IT sector only. Therefore, participants were given three different impact areas to choose from:
- Environmental Challenges
- Digital Base for Design Thinking
- Social Cohesion
Regardless which one they chose within their problem-solving journey; Design Thinking model was the one that connected them all as it was necessary to follow it. Developed by Stanford it is consisted out of five separate phases:
- Empathize– where participants analyze the problem and people affected by it
- Define– where concrete problem is recognized
- Ideate– when participants think of possible solutions
- Prototype – when they are detailing idea and finding a way to test it on users
- Test– testing out the idea
Design thinking model became an important element of today’s innovative process and just as that the core itself was represented to the participants before the introduction of whole model.
To many people this was the first encounter with us as organization and this type of event. Persons which significantly contributed to the project implementation and overall easing up the atmosphere were
- Amina Hasović with introductory speech that made participants feel comfortable enough to confidently share ideas, opinions and learn more about the story of BRAVO organization and Hackathon itself.
- Ismar Lačević as a Young Bosnian entrepreneur, creator of digital business card ‘’Adam’’ and current Head of Entrepreneurship in MarketMakers who responded to the call and shared his knowledge with participants.
- Sejdefa Bašić, an experienced manager with demonstrated history in nonprofit organizations and Collective Impact Director at Mozaik Foundation that shared useful tips for young entrepreneurs who are going through the process of creating new ideas, once passed by her.
Participants with a great support system, divided into groups were finding essential solutions to social problems. Based on the discovery first place taker was so called ‘’MODI’’ team, the team made up by Lejla Smječain and Tarik Agić, two young people with bright entrepreneurial future that will take part in international competition next year in Romania. Second place was won by the team ‘’Dictum Factum’’ and the third place was taken by two equally good teams ‘’Equality team’’ and team ‘’AIM’’.
In the end, once again it was validated that innovation crosses all borders and that there is no obstacle that human mind cannot overcome. The first chapter is closed but it is only the beginning of great stories that will be told by even greater minds. Therefore, BRAVO Civic Hackathon as a first Hackathon in Bosnia and Herzegovina is unique, unrepeatable story that wouldn’t be possible without its speakers, participants, BRAVO volunteers and others who took part in writing history.