What comes to mind when you think of the word “Hackfest”? Perhaps a festival of hackers, but no, it’s not.
Hackfest, was the tag of this year’s Vodacom Group’s hackathon, inspired by the theme “Music: The Sound of Innovation.”
“We picked music because music is in us, drives us, especially here in Africa, music is born in us. And we want to celebrate our ideas with a dance on stage,” said Mark Waihenya, Manager of Innovation Programs at Safaricom.
During the event, staff from various markets compete to devise solutions to work-related challenges. It is held in eight of Vodacom’s African markets: Kenya through Safaricom, South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, DRC, Ethiopia, and Egypt.
“Hackathons come to reignite or to awaken people from the slumber of everyday work. During the hackathons, you get people to think outside the box and come up with ideas, and then the hackathon has teamwork where people beef up their ideas, present,” Eneth Kubai, Head of Enterprise Architecture, Safaricom.
One does not necessarily have to be a developer to participate in the competition.
“Hackathons have always been seen or perceived as programs for tech people only, but it’s open to everyone, anyone in any field in the business can attend. And it’s really a wonderful thing because it allows you to network, cross collaborate, and it doesn’t restrict you to only work with people in your market,” said Thandi Mangezi, Events Manager and Ideation Specialist, Vodacom.
As part of this year’s Hackfest, 23 teams from Safaricom competed in four categories: Customer, Growth, Simplicity, and Purpose.
The winning Safaricom teams were Kingasphere, Jobi, Guru, and Kaa Rada. In May, they will battle it out on the Africa stage in South Africa.
Hackathons have led to the development of some key products at Safaricom.
In 2022, a group of interns devised a mobile phone standing order to pay for monthly payments through mobile money. The interns won that year’s competition, benchmarked at a global level, and eventually saw their idea go to market in 2024 as M-Ratiba.
Watch the video below to see the gist of this year’s Hackfest!
