India is a land of abundant talent, but talent needs opportunities to breed and showcase. Hence, in what could be considered as a positive sign for India's talented pool who're working on innovation rather than the aping today's big "it" thing, India has surfaced at the second spot in a list of countries hosting the maximum hackathons.
According to the ‘Global Hackathon Report’ prepared by HackerEarth, a talent management software provider, with 105 hackathons hosted since the year 2015, India is second in nudging innovation, next only to the United States, which hosted a total of 379 hackathon events. Not only this, Indian cities, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad also find a place in the list of top 10 cities worldwide to host maximum hackathons.
For the uninitiated, a hackathon can be described as an event where people come together and use technology to transform ideas into reality. The word hackathon is a portmanteau of the words hack and marathon, where hack is used in the sense of playful, exploratory programming, not its alternate meaning as a reference to computer crime.
It is important to note that not only the IT sector, but other sectors such as food, climate, heathcare and finance are nowadays also making use of hackathons to address crucial problems being faced in their sectors.
While US walked away with the top honour when it came to countries organising the most number of hackathons, London with 31 events and San Francisco with 28 events occupied the top two places among cities.
Commenting on the report, Sachin Gupta, CEO and Co-founder, HackerEarth said, "The report outlines a clear trend that hackathons are successfully battling talent scarcity, acquisition and retention as well as fuelling innovation across domains and functions."
According to the report, emerging technologies such as Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Augmented reality/Virtual reality were among the top domains featuring in the hackathon events since last two years, followed by mobile app and web development.
Interestingly, the report also revealed that nearly 50 per cent of the hackathons hosted around the world since 2015 were hosted by private organisations of different sectors who were looking to encourage the creativity gene among their employees, find low-cost solutions or even fast-track innovative, out-of-the-box ideas. For instance, Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart, which turned 10 this year, conducted a Gridlock Hackathon contest this year as a part of its tenth anniversary celebration through which it aimed to solve Bengaluru's decades long traffic situation.
According to the ‘Global Hackathon Report’ prepared by HackerEarth, a talent management software provider, with 105 hackathons hosted since the year 2015, India is second in nudging innovation, next only to the United States, which hosted a total of 379 hackathon events. Not only this, Indian cities, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad also find a place in the list of top 10 cities worldwide to host maximum hackathons.
For the uninitiated, a hackathon can be described as an event where people come together and use technology to transform ideas into reality. The word hackathon is a portmanteau of the words hack and marathon, where hack is used in the sense of playful, exploratory programming, not its alternate meaning as a reference to computer crime.
It is important to note that not only the IT sector, but other sectors such as food, climate, heathcare and finance are nowadays also making use of hackathons to address crucial problems being faced in their sectors.
While US walked away with the top honour when it came to countries organising the most number of hackathons, London with 31 events and San Francisco with 28 events occupied the top two places among cities.
Commenting on the report, Sachin Gupta, CEO and Co-founder, HackerEarth said, "The report outlines a clear trend that hackathons are successfully battling talent scarcity, acquisition and retention as well as fuelling innovation across domains and functions."
According to the report, emerging technologies such as Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Augmented reality/Virtual reality were among the top domains featuring in the hackathon events since last two years, followed by mobile app and web development.
Interestingly, the report also revealed that nearly 50 per cent of the hackathons hosted around the world since 2015 were hosted by private organisations of different sectors who were looking to encourage the creativity gene among their employees, find low-cost solutions or even fast-track innovative, out-of-the-box ideas. For instance, Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart, which turned 10 this year, conducted a Gridlock Hackathon contest this year as a part of its tenth anniversary celebration through which it aimed to solve Bengaluru's decades long traffic situation.
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