If you ask our students if the Hackathon is a good experience, we are sure you will get only positive answers. With 48 hours of hard work, detailed research and mentoring meetings, the students came up with excellent final solutions.
The Hackathons series, or “The Largest Hackathon Ever Organized by Brainster,” began at the Academy of Graphic Design, where students were tasked with creating the entire brand identity, name and logo of the project, and then proceeded to the Academy of UX / UI Design where the assignment was for the students to take care of the functionality of the product, the look of the web application and all the wireframes. After the visualization, it was the turn of the students from the Programming Academy, who had the task to take care of the additional development of the product and its improvement, i.e. web solution.
After completing this Cross-Academy collaboration, the Hackathon continued at the Digital Marketing Academy, where students were tasked with overseeing the final product solution and creating a marketing strategy for the product launch platform.
The project they were working on is the “White Noise Player – Shum” platform. This is a platform where everyone will have the opportunity to get involved for free and play a certain melody while working. The aim of this project is to increase the productivity and creativity of people who work from home due to the situation with the Covid-19 pandemic and to make them not feel lonely.
According to the specifications of this Hackathon, students were divided into teams and each team was assigned a mentor who was available for questions, advice and support. They had 48 hours to prepare and present their final solution.
The 48-hour hackathon of the Digital Marketing Academy kicked off on a Friday with a briefing by the design team and the Brainster team. In this session, all the necessary information was shared with the students, and the preparations started the same day with a high level of excitement and interest. The atmosphere was great the next day and passed ultra-fast and productively. From the early hours of the morning until late at night, each of the teams worked diligently on their solution.
Throughout the process they had mentors who were available to each of the teams for questions, advice, and criticism and helped them reach the final solution. Their mentors were Diana Despodov and Darjan Radenkovic – instructors at the Digital Marketing Academy.
After 48 hours of hard work, the final presentations before the committee, which was composed of mentors and the Brainster team, followed on Sunday. All the teams offered great solutions, so the decision to choose a winning team was not at all easy. However, in the end, the most creative solution of team 3 stood out.
Read the students’ impressions of the Hackathon:
Maja Pedd Trajkovska: Really great experience. Creating a complete marketing strategy in 48 hours is a big challenge. During that weekend you constantly feel insecure (whether you will have enough time and ideas) and a sense of excitement (that you are making something new and have a chance to win). During that weekend you have the opportunity to get to learn more, because you are constantly in communication with your team and the mentor, it is interesting when your ideas are complemented and you build something in common. By participating in the Hackathon I had the opportunity to see how much I have learned at the Academy and what I need to pay more attention to in the future. It is best to study on real projects and I would be happy to participate on another projects.
Ana Georgievska: Great experience. This was a chance to show what I have learned so far at the Academy, and yet the whole process was fun and full of adrenaline because it was done in just 48 hours. Although we met the other members of the team during this Hackathon, from the very beginning we thought the same and shared our tasks very well, which contributed to the fact that we did not feel that we were working but that we literally enjoyed the process. We were in constant communication, both with each other and with our mentor Diana, who from the very beginning gave us the right directions to finally create the winning strategy. I am grateful to Brainster for this experience and I hope that there will be more competitions like this, in which I would gladly participate again.
Sanja Gnjatovic: I would describe the hackathon as a 48-hour socializing event with semi-stressful and long zoom sessions. The good chemistry in the team and the guidance from our mentor Diana proved to be a winning combination. In my opinion, this is a great chance to show and use the knowledge gained at the Academy and by creating a complete marketing strategy to see how it works “in real life”.
P.S. Can I apply for the next hackathon?! 🙂
Ivan Malinovski: The hackathon for “Shum” was a great experience. For those 48 hours that were given to us for work, we had a chance to show how much we have learned so far and get a very real and fun experience as future marketers in team effort, efficient work, and communication. The process was a lot of fun, although we did not know each other before the start of the hackathon, there was friendship and fun, which made the work process much more interesting and easier. We also received many helpful directions from our mentor Diana, and after this experience I think that everyone who decided to participate in this hackathon cannot wait for the next one.
Natalia Atanasova: The experience was great. We had the chance to work on a real project where we applied all the acquired knowledge and skills. A storm of ideas, suggestions, comments, great friendship, and great effort is what created the Shum project and led it to victory. Many thanks to all the mentors of the Academy who openly shared their skills and experiences and I would be happy to participate in another project like this.
At the Digital Marketing Academy we learn by working on real world projects for real clients under the mentorship of proven and experienced instructors.
If you also want to work on real projects and learn from experts in the field, make an appointment with our student success manager to make the right career decision.
