Redefining the Hackathon Tool
In this chapter, we will cover the background to the birth of citizen-driven innovation, and in detail, discuss how it can reinvent the hackathon tool. The hackathon as a phenomenon within the tech world is not new, so how can this innovation competition have an impact in this new context? We will discuss different types of hackathons and how they can serve different purposes and goals you may have for your organization.
The reason this book is here all starts with an odd requirement for a government mission in Sweden back in 2018. An out-of-the-box thinker at the Swedish Public Employment Service decided to hire not the obvious choice. The obvious choice for the role would have been a tech person or a professional project manager – instead, he took a chance on a psychologist at the Swedish Public Employment Service who had expressed a desire to work with digital innovation. This turned out in a completely different way than expected –...