What Problems Hackathons Can Help Solve In Our Pandemic-Hit World

What’s expected of tech startups and entrepreneurs in the COVID-19 crisis? A question that is on my mind for the past few months does not have a straightforward answer. Naturally, they are expected to do things they're already doing well — help people stay connected and get the stuff done. Those who do actually thrive even in the middle of the crisis, as we are seeing Gousto meal box service, Onfido AI verification platform, and Stripe digital payments service all rising multi-million investment rounds.

However, is it enough just to continue what you’re doing, even if you doing it well? Apparently not. As Mark Andressen urges in his recent essay, it is the time to keep the vanity aside and build things that society desperately needs. “Every step of the way, to everyone around us, we should be asking the question, what are you building? What are you building directly, or helping other people to build, or teaching other people to build, or taking care of people who are building?… We need to get all the talent we can on the biggest problems we have, and on building the answers to those problems” he says.

And who better than tech entrepreneurs are suited to build those answe

rs? It comes as no surprise that nearly 60 hackathons have already taken or will take place to help COVID-19 crisis relief efforts. I was lucky to witness one from the inside as a mentor for the Arts & Creativity section at  The Global Hack initiative.

Back in mid-March, The Global Hack was one of the first hackathons to tackle COVID-19 related problems. The virtual hackathon was going on via Slack, reflective of the times of social distancing we’re living in. Despite the challenging format, over 12k participants from 100+ countries came up with about 500 ideas to aid the crisis relief. Looking back at the event, here are three reasons why I think the hackathons can help move the needle, and one reason why it might never happen.

Global, unprecedented challenge

Remember the line from the ‘Silicon Valley’ TV series? “I don’t know about you people, but I don’t want to live in a world where someone else makes the world a better place better than we do”. Those words of Gavin Belson, one of the series’ characters, literally characterize most of the tech entrepreneurs. Ambitious, aiming to be the first, looking out of the box — the same traits needed to create any innovative tech products are now required to battle COVID-19 crisis.

The unprecedented challenge motivates thousands of tech specialists to join hackathon teams and create something meaningful for millions. For example, the overall winner  SolarCrafter, drafted a solar-powered hand disinfection station, something that many will need in the ‘new normal’ life. Or team which addressed the needs for 360+ million people for psychological support.

People strongly motivated to create something before others, impact millions, and potentially get a good credit with VCs checking out those hackathons are the first reason why they can make a difference.

Focus on relief

Nearly every team at The Global Hack chose to address a social issue that COVID-19 crisis is causing. Some, like my personal favorites ShoutOut and La Causa, looked at solutions based on sense of community and helping each other, such as delivering food to elderly and self-isolating people. Others focus on very specific audiences such as electron.live, a platform to connect performers and audience online, or Trans-Late, a service for people requiring assisted mental health therapies.

The reason why such ideas can make things better is that they address the issues often overlooked at a global scale. Of course, when human lives are at stake, governments and other state-level organisations need to focus on saving as many as possible, and preventing the disease to spread. However, their agenda might be missing some smaller, but still important issues the world is facing — from lightening up a in self-isolation to  from disinfectants. Recognizing those challenges is the first step to relieving them.

Urge to code

It may sound funny but for many engineers I personally know a hackathon is the same as a spa day or a weekend getaway for most people outside of the tech industry. Some do it for fun, some have the urge to stretch their coding muscles, some want to test their personal ideas in a sandbox. When some people look for banana bread recipes or at-home yoga practices, developers find their virtual retreats in hackathons. Who knows, maybe it takes one bored coder to finally hack the COVID-19?

And the reason why not

As we can see, the hackathons have a great potential to aid the COVID-19 crisis relief. And one big blocker why they might not able to do it — lack of resources to actually build. Fearing the risk of market recession, investors are choosing to back up the projects with proven business models, while the most of the hackathon projects are still to prove themselves.

Despite the fact that some governments are already backing up the early-stage startups to survive the crisis, it’s also not a fully sustainable solution. Startup industry is based on the principles of strong competition and ability to survive through the storms, and only the strongest make their way through. Even during The Global Hack I’ve seen a few startups struggling to clearly understand the problem they are addressing and how they can feasibly help. Does it mean they are not worth supporting?

We are now at the beginning of a long journey, and the hackathons clearly can help. In order to do so, I can see a few steps to speed up the process:

• Hackathon organisers can pre-define problems to address, so the efforts are not diluted
• Venture capitalists need to monitor the hackathons regularly and dedicate a budget they can spare to support the most promising ideas
• VC industry needs to clearly define the criteria to judge the COVID-19 crisis relief ideas. Apart from traditional startup evaluation metrics, those can have more focus on short-term benefits and social good, rather than monetization
• Finally, the participants need to be realistic about what they actually can do, even with a minimal funding. In the current situation, a small-scale, but quick to implement idea can make the world a better place.