Coffee with a workmate from the floor below, chats at lunchtime, after-work drinks following a meeting that overran. Remote working is a great resource and, in this unusual moment of history, it’s also a means by which we can protect ourselves and others. The risk, however, is that we miss out on all of those opportunities for socializing that make up everyday working life and that lead to the generation of new ideas, discussions of different points of view, while also taking us out of our regular comfort zones of friends and habitual relationships. How can this problem be solved? Is it possible to make remote, agile working more “social” and more conducive to “happy opportunities” that can lead to unexpected outcomes: in other words, “serendipity”?
This is the goal of the “Design for new social interactions” hackathon. The event, which is being organized by Enel, will take place entirely online from November 30 to December 4. It’s a challenge in which 30 candidates can take part, coming together (virtually) with 20 Enel employees who have been selected to form mixed, multidisciplinary teams, each composed of five people.
Candidates will be able to enter directly from their computers into a program intended to involve the younger generation in the processes of defining experiences and services to imagine new ways of working and of creating sustainable social interaction. The program’s aim is to produce ideas and projects to make the digital working environment more welcoming and richer in creative social interaction. The top three groups will win prizes of 5 thousand, 3 thousand and 2 thousand euro respectively.
To enter our digital hackathon, which is being organized in collaboration with LAND education, you need to register on our Open Innovability® crowdsourcing platform and send in your application. All that’s required is a letter of presentation, in Italian, explaining why you want to take part in the digital marathon (maximum 200 words) and a summarized description of a possible project idea to develop (maximum 200 words, accompanied by an image, video, etc.). Finally, based on applicants’ resumés, we want to find out the key skills of potential participants in order to assemble the various working groups. The deadline for applications is November 16 and those who are selected will be informed by November 19. Together with the other members of the team, who will also be led by a group of mentors, tutors and technology, design and innovation experts, each participant in the hackathon will be able to bring all their creativity to the table. In this way they can develop, based on a specific scenario, an original project to present together with a physical/digital prototype.
The hackathon is open to college students in both undergraduate and Ph.D programs, or professionals who want to put themselves to the test and contribute, through their own experience and innovative ideas, to generating a positive impact in the long term, to improve the work of thousands of other people in our country. This is thanks to the power of ideas.