"This ambiance is something you don't find in the business world, the sincerity and respect for each other. And each person's skills are freed to contribute in a complementary way." Adama works as a programmer now, but he has fond memories of his involvement with Cru as a student. The hackathon opened up a new mission field for him. At first he wondered how he could contribute, but God brought all the right skills together - including Adama's - to make significant leaps forward on three different projects. With eleven participants, we invested our weekend together in a beautiful selfless way. The primary project was for a site that coaches people who are learning languages. Our team enabled localization for it! Let me explain, have you ever had to use a web site that isn't in English? Let's say you're going to travel to France and want to purchase some tickets in advance, but the site is in French. Localization is that magic little link that you click to translate the whole site into your language. Our hackathon programming team installed an engine that enables language options for the language coaching website. Pretty impressive for just a weekend's work! After such intense coding, sleeping only a handful of hours for two nights, and having a 2 a.m. video call with 40 locations around the world, how did these programmers feel? They asked when they can sign up for next year!
There were two additional projects our team worked on. One was developing a social media plan to increase Cru's visibility to students, a problem put forth by the local campus team in Lyon. God brought a social media professional to Lyon who worked with communications specialists - you don't have to be a geek to participate in a hackathon. This team helped define the target audience for social media campaigns. They also laid out a game plan for how those campaigns could be run. Their solution will be tested in Lyon and could be employed by other campus ministries.
The third project is one that Dan worked on, creating a logo for the language coaching website. He sent the logo specifications to two other graphics designers participating in the hackathon. This collaboration happened online, he still doesn't know where in the world they were! After forwarding all of the propositions he gathered, as well as a couple ideas of his own, they chose his design. He had enough time to finalize it and deliver it in about every format conceivable. Yes, there's even space for creatives at a hackathon!
A hackathon is about making your skills and expertise available for God's kingdom, working together to find solutions. Thank you so much for praying for this event. God truly did show up.
Praises
- for a very successful hackathon!
Please pray
- for Dan’s progress in learning to create animated videos.
- that May, who is once again leading the technology team, will motivate and lead her team well.
