What we learned from "Hack the crisis"

By Sara Hernandez

Co-workers from Comprend participated in “Hack the Crisis”, the official Swedish COVID-19 hackathon aimed at saving lives, communities and businesses. This is what we learned from 48 hours of hanging out with over 6000 engaged hackers.

Hack the Crisis was an online hackathon organised by DIGG, Hack for Sweden, Openhack and The Swedish Government that took place last weekend. The aim was to co-create solutions to help solve some of the challenges brought by the pandemic. As lives are at risk and jobs under threat, there is an increased need to work together to develop creative ideas and concepts.

Of course, we at Comprend wanted to be part of this initiative.

Comprend’s CEO Staffan Lindgren acted as a mentor during the hackathon. What kind of solutions did you see during the hackathon and what were you most impressed with?

Staffan: I helped five teams working on very different ideas and solutions over the weekend. The ideas ranged from creating a DSP platform for government to use for information distribution, to staffing ideas and fact-checking services. 

I was very impressed by the speed with which the teams worked and how far they could take an idea in just a few hours. 

Berulv Tøndel worked together with a group developing an idea to improve the process of finding substitute and temp workers in times of need. What did you learn during this hackathon? 

Berulv: First and foremost I experienced that we made decisions and adapted ideas at a fast pace at due to the time pressure. We also gained new insights during the process as the availability of the team members shifted across the two days. The most important question we repeatedly asked ourselves during the project was: "What is the biggest concern right now?" What I learned was to be at ease with the quickly changing environment, and to just trust both the flow of ideas and the people that I didn’t know when the hackathon started.

Secondly, I learned (again) the magnificent effect of ensuring a common view of the problem that we were about to solve. We developed and established this quite quickly on the first evening. We did this with the design thinking method “How Might We”, followed by a creative session building the visual representation of the service. Collective intelligence for real!

Sara Hernandez teamed up to develop an idea for an app to tackle the problem of social isolation. How did you find the format of a totally digital hackathon?

Sara: As we have already had a few weeks to get used to working remotely, digital collaboration has become easier and easier. However, there were some problems with finding competences, communicating, and putting a team together. We started out as a larger team but in the end there were two of us who completed the challenge and submitted a solution. 

Designers were scarce during the hackathon. I saw lots of teams asking for help with web design, UX, motion graphics and video production close to the end of the event late on Sunday afternoon. Design and UX are really core skills when it comes to developing useful tools and attractive solutions.

All things aside, it was a great event to be a part of and there were high spirits in the event's Slack channels. People were helpful, encouraging and willing to share knowledge. Some amazing ideas were hacked during this weekend, and I am sure a lot of them will make a difference in society. 

Keep an eye out on the event website for the submitted solutions: https://www.hackthecrisis.se/