Culture
6 min read
Come on Barbie, Let’s Go Party: Artera iO Hosts its Second Annual Hackathon Demo Day
This blog is also cross-posted on artera.io
Creating a culture of continuous learning and improvement is a main priority for our Innovation Organization (iO) here at Artera. In fact, we are firm believers that experimenting, being creative and taking risks are what lead to new development. A Hackathon enables just that.
Dedicated to revolutionizing the patient communications industry, our iO recently hosted its second annual Hackathon Demo Day. This year was especially vibrant (and pink!), with an entirely new theme: Barbie!
Artera iO: Fostering Innovation and Collaboration
With 30 teams participating, this exciting event served as a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration, bringing together a diverse group of product managers, designers, software engineers and more to tackle real-world challenges head-on.
The goal was to foster a culture of creativity, innovation and problem-solving, resulting in a showcase of groundbreaking solutions designed to enhance the Artera platform to improve the staff or patient experience.
Ultimately, teams participate to push the envelope of what the platform can do – helping us continue to iterate the product. Many of these innovative ideas are even put into production following the event.
Artera Hackathons are an opportunity to get very creative and explore solving problems. It is all about freedom and creativity, allowing individuals to implement ideas of their own (it is also meant to be a lot of fun!).”
Joanne Chen, VP of Data
Hackathon Rules
Everyone in iO (Engineers, DevOps, data, SET, Designers, PMs, etc.) is encouraged to participate in the Hackathon. Individuals can choose their teammates, creating teams of roughly 2-5 members.
After developing a creative team name, the team sets out to work through a project idea – one that they personally find fascinating. Hackathon ideas can be almost anything, as long as it’s related or has some application for Artera. They could be pure innovation, customer requests, a new product or internal tools.
Once deciding on a project, each team then has just one week to “hack” and one day to demo, presenting their idea in just five minutes to the entire company. On demo day, presentations are evaluated by four judges: Guillaume de Zwirek, CEO, Tom McIntyre, COO, Zach Wood, SVP, Product & Partner Ecosystem and Sarah Shillington, Chief Customer Officer. A poll is then set up for the rest of the company to vote for People’s Choice and Best Demo/Presentation.
The Hackathon was all about freedom and creativity. Teams explored problem-solving from new directions, experimented with projects outside of their day-to-day work, some succeeded while others didn’t — it was all in the spirit of learning and collaboration, to ultimately improve our product and our team.
SUJATA MUJUMDAR, DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING
A Showcase of Groundbreaking Solutions
Hackathon Demo Day was a resounding success, showcasing an array of groundbreaking solutions that have the potential to truly make an impact on the Artera platform and the user experience.
Attendees were treated to an inspiring display of creativity and innovation as teams presented their projects, each addressing a unique challenge or opportunity to improve the Artera platform.
One of the key themes throughout the presentations was all about making the platform more user-friendly, whether by providing an updated navigation experience, optimized and real-time data retrieval, customization opportunities and even an “on-the-go” mobile application experience for users.
While there was an incredible amount of innovation (and lots of glitter and glam) across Demo Day, Hackathon presentations were evaluated both by the judges and the entire company – many of which were together for a watch party at our headquarters in Santa Barbara.
Based on the votes, winners included:
- Best Customer Value – KENquerors of the Multiverse
- Best Internal Value – Data Dreamhouse
- Most Creative/Innovative – Glitter Chatters
- Best Demo/Presentation – Portal Glam Squad
- People’s Choice Awards – Ask Artie
While winners are announced immediately following the Hackathon, the fun doesn’t stop. The iO team ultimately comes together to decide on which projects to move forward with in terms of production, pulling together the correct teams to complete the work to deploy following the event.
There were so many impressive projects. It’s truly humbling to work with such talented people.
Darin Moore, VP of DevOps
Join Artera iO and be a Part of the Change
Artera iO is a community of passionate individuals dedicated to transforming patient communications. The organization empowers its team to continuously challenge the status quo, seek out unconventional solutions, and ultimately deliver exceptional outcomes for patients and staff alike. Events like the Hackathon are just one example of the creative opportunities our team members have to engage in.
Interested in joining the iO? Learn more about our iO organization here or check our available careers here.
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