Over 250 team of Wipro employees from across the globe collaborated remotely with their teammates to design and develop apps for multiple platforms and languages.
It is believed that a healthy competition keeps employees highly motivated and productive. It proves to be beneficial for both the organisation and the workforce.
Wipro, the country’s third largest IT company, has brought this belief into practice. It recently concluded a two-month long internal virtual hackathon, for its employees. Named, ‘CodeStorm AppHack’, the employees had to develop mobile and web-based applications both the B2B and B2C segments. The objective was to develop mobile and web-based applications.
Wipro employees from across the globe formed teams and participated in this multiple round hackathon. Over 250 teams collaborated remotely with their teammates to design and develop apps for multiple platforms and languages.
The initiative witnessed over 2,000 collective hours of coding by Wipro employees, supported by a team of senior mentors and evaluated by a panel of judges and mentors, which included members from Wipro’s Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (DMTS) Community and the company’s leadership team. The evaluation rounds were a mix of virtual and physical presentations and discussions.
The outcome of this hackathon was 25 shortlisted apps that dealt in mobility in retail, building in-store experiences, next-gen smart grid management for power utilities, IoT (internet of Things) based home appliance automation & control and API (Application Program Interface) mashups to enable employee-friendly business processes. The company plans to incorporate some of these innovative solutions in customer projects as well as for developing internal use cases.
The top 5 winning teams were rewarded with reward points that are part of the Wipro’s internal corporate rewards program.
Saurabh Govil, global head, human resources, Wipro says, “Such Initiatives are designed in a fun format and have a massive appeal among the millennial generation.”
“The hackathon demanded a blend of creativity, technical and business skills to solve challenges and was therefore a showcase of their ideas and new-age skill-sets,” he adds.
AppHack is part of ‘CodeStorm’ a global internal initiative aimed at encouraging the skillful use of technology and to inculcate a culture of innovation among the company’s employees, in a fun way. CodeStorm was launched in 2014 and over 7000 Wipro employees have participated in ‘CodeStorm’ initiatives, so far.