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BALDT 2017 Learning Design Hackathon wrap up

After running a successful hackathon event last year, this year the Bay Area Learning Design & Technology Meetup team expanded on their hackathon concept from the year by introducing a new format that would allow teams to have more time to prepare their project for presentation.

Scott Cooper

2017-09-23

As way to allow each of the team to have more time to work on their ideas and produce more extensive results to pitch to our panel of judges, the 2017 was run over 2 weeks, with the first night designated for forming teams and starting work on their learning solution, and the second night - 7 days after forming teams, finalizing their presentation and presenting to the judges.

This also allowed teams to meet up throughout the week to refine their solutions.

Participants were split up into teams based on their learning background so all teams had diverse skill sets and background knowledge that could be used to tackle our challenge.

Teams were then presented with some drab and dry learning content on cyber security, with their task being to convert the material into an engaging and successful learning experience. This could come to life in many forms, such as a gamified learning structure, a blended learning environment, a self-paced elearning, or even something as simple as a job aid.

They were also given the criteria on which they would be assessed including:

· Engagement (how much does it draw in the learner?)
· Effectiveness (how likely will it solve the problem?)
· Scalability (high touch point with low operational cost)
· Success metrics (how success will be measured?)

Our panel of industry experts who would be judging the solutions included Jenny Blackburn, Director of Technology People & Leadership at Salesforce, Rich Taylor, head of Learning & Development at Palo Alto networks and, B.J. Schone, Sr. Manager of Sales Learning & Technology at Autodesk.

With eight teams of between four and six members tacking the challenge, we saw some amazing ideas coming to life over the two nights, and you can watch all the full video of all of our teams pitching below.

All teams delivered amazing pitches to a great crowd of not only attendees, but our judges and a large group of additional attendees who had come down just to watch Pitch Night. After narrowing the field down to a top 3, and a length break for discussion between the judges, it was the team of Ryan Richardson, Kelly Reed and Davie Sy who came out as winners.

Congratulations Ryan, Kelly and Davie! They presented a great learning solution which clearly defined their all elements outlined in the judging criteria, including some creative ways to deliver and track training, as well as a very impressive rollout and tracking system that would lead to a successful roll out.

As the winners of the 2017 Learning Design Hackathon, Ryan, Kelly and Davie took home a $250 gift card thanks to Walmart.com, which they have very kindly donated to a local charity.

You can view all of the photos from the event here thanks to Gordon Mak

Thanks to everyone who came down and got involved in the night, as well as to Go1 for providing the food, and LinkedIn for hosting both nights!

If you want to be a part of future meetups like this, make sure you join the Bay Area Learning Design & Technology Meetup group.

The Bay Area Learning Design & Technology Team: Rajon, Scott, Angela, Stacy and Joselito