We’re incredibly lucky that the O-team is made up of such a brilliant bunch of enterprising minds. Sure, we knew everyone was awesome at what they did day to day, but we wanted to give the Tech and Product team the chance to really let their imaginations run free on the challenge of actioning our purpose; making sure every item of clothing is worn. So, we hosted a hackathon!
We threw down the gauntlet to the Tech and Product team worldwide, asking them to submit their innovative ideas for improved automation and efficiency; from upgrades to the app and enhancements to the platform, to fine-tuning the systems that we as a team use behind the scenes. And, the results were even more amazing than we expected. We had participants from 15 different countries bringing a whole host of forward-thinking concepts, which we whittled down to 9. Each participant then joined a team behind one of these concepts.
The day started with impassioned pitches of the initial ideas from the team leaders to the entire hackathon. The teams then broke off into groups for the day and let the creativity commence. Everyone brought their own unique strengths to the table, from researching consumer behaviour to dreaming up demonstrations. As the day drew to a close and the clock counted its final minutes, the teams rushed to perfect their presentations.
The moment of truth arrived, each team pitched their idea to a panel of executive team members. They heard an assortment of excellent ideas, from improvements in sharability to the gamification of everyday processes. Co-founder and Co-CEO Max Klijnstra was blown away by “the enthusiasm, creativity, and passion behind every pitch”. The panel then had the unenviable task of choosing their favourite three solutions out of 9 top-shelf pitches.
The top three were:
3. Team Freaky Octopus (Sumit, Kyriakos, and Lucia) with a novel review system.2. Team 🐝2 🐝 (Jayathu, Chamara, Violeta, Alex, and Sameera) with an incredibly handy web app.1. Team O-404 not found it (Akshaya, Hicham, Paul, Danielle, Alex, Lucas, and Francisco) took first place with their innovative share functionality.
Each team won a mixture of Amazon and Otrium credits, as well as the opportunity to develop their unique solutions to be incorporated into the Otrium offering.
Needless to say, the hackathon was a huge success, and we're already looking forward to hosting our next one, rolling it out across the entire company to unearth more ground-breaking thinking from the O-team. A huge thanks to everyone involved, until next time ✌️.