What I Learned Watching All 1800 Project Videos from Microsoft’s Giant Hackathon

Microsoft’s Hackathon 2018–The Garage’s gargantuan, global make fest–is less than a week away, and the mojo is strong on our campuses. Yesterday, I spent half the day in our of our cafes, talking with employees about their plans for hacking. There are lots of exciting things planned. Every year, the Hackathon is somehow bigger and better, so I’m excited to see what this year has in store.

Our Hackathons always inspire me, and last year’s event was particularly moving because it came at a poignant time in my life. After that big life-altering event, I undertook an endeavor that inspired, fulfilled, and recharged me. I dug into every single project from the Hackathon–there were thousands–to find the best ways to take all of that generated value forward. From the undertaking, the passion, skill, and creativity of my colleagues around the globe deeply inspired me. If you’re a passion junkie like I am, seeing what everyone pours their hearts into is quite the rush!

 Here are some of the things that popped out to me:

The projects were deliberate and purposeful. 

The teams aligned to things they really care about. They chose to do what’s good for our customers, improve our culture, learn new things, and make the world a better place for everyone. Since 2015, Microsoft’s mission is: “Empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” This mission matters deeply to the many people who choose to work at Microsoft, and this showed up in the projects. Showing deep empathy, hackers describe how their hacks help people achieve more.

Our hackers are getting more sophisticated. 

At our 4th annual global Hackathon, we saw that many people planned ahead to optimize their time. Team leaders tried several new techniques such as testing the “hackers market” through multiple project entries, simultaneously leading multiple projects, team-building throughout the year, and learning skills explicitly to making them better at hacking.

AI is trending and has been increasing year-over-year. 

Being a long-time fan of Artificial Intelligence–it was my tech concentration at MIT–I share this passion. I’m thrilled that AI is now viable. Our hackers feel the same, evidenced that more and more projects are about AI. When I presented the extent of these findings to Harry Shum, the head of our AI and Research engineering group, he said, “So, you’re telling me that AI is the future of this company?” “Yes, Harry. I think I read that somewhere.” But it wasn’t just me telling Harry that, that’s what the data say.

There are colossal depth and breadth of skills, knowledge, and experience in the world.

My colleagues have deep experience in areas I didn’t even know existed. Seriously, there were so many times that videos just astonished me into how they were so deftly addressing problems I never even imagined.

 Many common types of projects emerged. 

There are some needs that are so strong, that they show up repeatedly. It becomes a very strong signal when you see multiple people hacking in the same space. And when that happens, you also see so many different sides of the problem and different angles to solving it. What an eye-opener to see both the problem and the solution from so many sides.

The motivations for hacking are as diverse as the hackers. 

Everyone has different motivations for hacking—from learning to having fun to making the next big thing to scratching a particular itch. From last year’s hackathon, we have a ton of data on this, and I spent a lot of time seeing common correlations between different motivations, but there were so many combinations. What’s really excited is just to see how people bring their energy to their hacks.

Conclusion

Last year I spent nearly a month watching the videos for each project. And, as time-consuming as that was, it was completely worth it. Would I do it again? Absolutely. I’m fired up to see the creativity, passion, and talents of my colleagues. I’m planning to watch them all again. Let the hacking begin!