By Julius Schmid
In an increasingly digitised world, programming knowledge is vital for students.
Hackathons are good opportunities for business students to experience what it is like to collaborate with people that have diverse skillsets. They bring together graphic and interface designers, project managers and computer programmers to work on various software initiatives. Hackathons typically involve teams of students that create software programmes to solve a business issue within 24 hours.
You never know who you will get to work with and the unpredictability pushes all those involved out of their comfort zones. Given how dynamic the economy is today, hackathons provide a crucial training ground for people from all walks.
Personalising a customer journey
I took part in two hackathons in 2020, Hack.Asia (6 to 8 July) and Oscar and Paul Battleweeks by Beiersdorf (4 September to 5 October). They reaffirmed my belief that business students can help ensure that AI solutions also make sense from a business perspective.
At Hack.Asia, my teammate and fellow MSc Mgmt & CEMS MIM classmate Marco Borchert and I created a new digital customer journey for Jardine Restaurant Group.
Using the R programming language that we picked up at our MSc programme, we built a proof-of-concept for individualised automated marketing and a food recommendation tool.
One judge was impressed of our solution. It was customer-centric, because it considered personal food preferences, and also practical from a business viewpoint as we factored in the cost margin of the products.
Our top ten finish out of 80 teams was really good, considering that we are new to coding and that the winning team were post graduates from MIT.
MSc in Management and CEMS MIM alum Julius Schmid
A test of team management
It was a different experience with the Oscar & Paul Battleweeks hackathon. The competition tries to leverage external perspectives to innovate Oscar & Paul’s business models and work processes. The organisation is part of skin care giant Beiersdorf. My team consisted of three business students (including myself), a dermatologist and a 3D effects artist who had worked on the popular show “Game of Thrones”.
The individual members brought different perspectives and contributions to the team. The dermatologist acted as a skincare expert and could check the feasibility of our solution. The business students developed the business case and strategies for marketing, distribution channels and a launch plan, while the 3D artist turned our slides into a video presentation and made it visibly appealing.
At the beginning group meetings were slightly ineffective as we were still getting to know one another personally and professionally. To overcome this, we mapped out clear meeting agendas and organised smaller breakout sessions to troubleshoot specific issues.
Overall, it was a very enriching experience to get insights and working methods from different professions and also to see the value a business student can provide in a diverse team.
Finding my career path
Joining the Oscar & Paul Battleweeks hackathon convinced me that consulting is the right career path for me because I enjoyed working on projects that involve diverse industries and teams.
Besides helping me find my way, the hackathon is the perfect extra-curricular vehicle that allows me to apply my studies to real-world challenges. It is an opportunity for me to meet up with like-minded peers and expand my network.
I see the hackathon as a great learning ground to work with programmers. In the long run, it will be a huge advantage to be able to communicate with these colleagues in an increasingly digital world.
Julius Schmid graduated from the double-master programme MSc in Management and CEMS Master’s in International Management (CEMS MIM) in 2020.
