Last week, I have been honored by New York University of Abu Dhabi to participate in an annual event which is the International Hackathon in its 2nd edition. There were many students, mentors and judges from all over the world, I met people from the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Denmark, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and India.
The aim of the hackathon is to gather all these skillful people in one place and build some cool products for social good in MENA region. All of us were brainstorming to select the best sixteen ideas and then everyone joined the team he wants to work with. This step is called "Ready, Set, Pitch!" It's really crazy when you find yourself working with people you just met and you believe that after only three days, you are going to show something publicly and that it should be working!!
I will try in this article to highlight the most important things I learnt from this amazing and unique experience. So let's start.
1. Be tolerant:
During the event, there have been students from different countries and continents this means different cultures and religions, it is really nice how they worked together in the same teams without any conflicts and complexes. So one thing to learn is that you can work with people that do not have certainly the same culture like you and do not share the same religious or political views. When you are working for the same goal you can reach it together, you just have to be tolerant and accept the other as it is, just focus on your subject.
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When we believe in what we do, we can reach it without having to be have
the same culture/religion/political-views |
2. Believe in yourself:
In the beginning of the hackathon when we chose our projects and we started the work I told myself that it's really hard for me to achieve the work in just three days and because I changed the team, It has been a little difficult for me to integrate this new team. But after that, I realized that when you define your tasks in a clear way, you can work on a small idea and move to the second one when you finish it. So you can think big while acting on small pieces and assemble them at the end. After three days only, I was surprised when I saw that we finished the main skeleton of the app, it was really awesome.
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Our project's Logic ! (project's name : Marah, in arabic مرح).
I am one of the six people on earth who can understand what's on the picture by the way ! :p |
3. #AgeIsJustANumber:
At first when we met in the big room for discussing and brainstorming ideas, I saw a kid between us, instantly, I thought he was a son of someone or something like that.. Than I realized that he was a participant when he started talking about windows 8, windows phone 8 and stuff.. I was just surprised! He joined our table and I talked to him, he is a 14 years old programmer from India and his name is Gautam! We've been in the same team for the two next days. This guy taught me that age is really just a number, that everyone has the ability to start programming at an earlier stage, kids in my country are not used to.. They're just afraid of.
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| I can assure you he is good at this : Programming ! |
4. Shut up and go build something useful:
I have participated in many events in Algeria before, events like StartUp weekend, BootCamps and many training sessions. The difference with this one (NYUAD Hackathon) that it's based on the results, I mean that your job is evaluated by your demo, there is not much talk and long speeches with theoretical aspects and business stuff and so on.. It's all about code, teamwork and vision. You have to have a great idea first, than you start working on small parts of it to ensure that you'll have something to demonstrate after three days. There is no need to a long speech and business plans and stuff without any product at the end.
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| Daniel (Laha team) doing the live demo ! |
5. Never give up:
Another thing I learnt from this Hackathon is that one should never give up when it comes to doing something that he loves. I have been with a team at the beginning than the organizers said that our team was too big so I changed the team, then, in the second day, we completely changed the idea.. I have to confess that at some moment I lost confidence, I was like : "what the hell is happening to me?" because time is moving on. So we decided to keep the two ideas and divided tasks, we wanted to incorporate a game inside our app, but in the third day we realized that it was not evident to port a windows phone 7 game to windows 8! We decided then to create our own new game.. It was so stressful but it was really funny because the team I was with is the most awesome team I have ever been with!
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| From Left to right : Me (Algeria), Gautam (India), Dr. Moussa (Jordan), Alaa (Egypt), Hassan (Abu Dhabi) and Mahmoud (Jordan). |
6. Improve your English! You'll need it:
If there is one thing I could advise my peers in Algeria, is to learn and practice English. I am telling you that, because I personally found some difficulties especially at the first time, because here in Algeria we study in french so it's difficult for someone who has never talked in English before to express himself and his ideas with people that does not understand French. So, please, speak in English! Even if you think that you are very bad but just go on and try to practice it with your friends and everyone who can understand you.. or cannot! Because french is not going to help you outside France and some other countries but English is boundless, you can use it everywhere.. Trust me, Start today !
7. Don't be too serious! Have fun !
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Throwing someone ! (not from the window !! :D)
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Here is the list of all the projects! (4.)
Finally, I want to thank all of the organizers for making this opportunity happen in our region, we really need such initiatives! So let me thank prof. Sana' Odeh for the amazing efforts she did for us, all the mentors especially David Tomczyk and Arnaud Sahuguet for their precious help. Looking forward to seeing you again next year.
