Hackathon: A Fusion of Engineering and Business

When I first saw the flyers and Facebook invite to something called a “Hackathon,” I didn’t think anything of it. Because of the word Hack, it seemed like an event meant for more computer savvy people.  I immediately associated it with hackers, envisioning it to be an event attracting the secluded computer expert who probably knows how to read my email. But, I was wrong and later saw a phrase that caught my eye, “open to all majors”. Then I was curious to see how an event, that in my mind, was more fascinating to software and computer engineers could be interesting to all majors. So, I did a little bit of research. The first thing I did was look up the definition of Hackathon which was defined as;

1. An event that brings innovators and real world problems together to develop viable and sustainable solutions.
2. Connecting college students with industry leaders, who together, create a better world.

Now, I was interested thanks to several key words: connecting, develop and better world.

This philosophy of combining two different concepts into one is as old as time itself.  But , sometimes when you fuse two or more concepts together you get some of the best solutions. Here is an event that fuses engineering and science major’s innovations with business majors to produce something new. The Student Business Incubator at the Nathan M. Bisk College of Business hosted the first Business Hackathon. This three-day event brought together 11 teams of undergraduate and graduate students representing 14 majors across campus.

Although I did not participate, one of my friends who participated asked me for some advice from the point of view of a marketing and business major during the event. I found it intriguing that events like these allow for both engineers and business majors to work hand-in-hand to accomplish a common goal. While engineers are great with the technical knowledge and problem solving, they benefit greatly from having business majors whose expertise is consumer behaviors, production and operations. This mixing of majors is one of ideals that the new Florida Tech Student Business Incubator encourages, as it allows anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit to go out and pursue their dreams of starting their own business whether they be in marketing or marine biology