This Is Not a Traditional Hackathon Story

Two weeks ago, the entire Buzzvil team went to Yeoju for our annual workshop and our first internal hackathon. But let me just say upfront, this is not a traditional hackathon story. Nor is this about a traditional company workshop. At Buzzvil, we like to break out of the box, so we came up with a fusion of the two: a 3-day hackathon + workshop that became a one-of-a-kind experience for all of us. What Is a Hackathon? And What Is a Workshop? By now, most of us are familiar with what hackathons are and how they can benefit companies and communities. Typically, hackathons involve engineers getting together to build and often demo a new product or feature in an intensive 24~48-hour time span. While many large-scale hackathons are open to the public, more and more companies are seeing the benefits of internal hackathons and are making them a regular part of their company culture, such as at Yelp, Indeed, and SumAll, to name a few. Then, you have your traditional Korean company &ldquoworkshop.&rdquo Just as a bit of background, many Korean companies have workshops once or twice a year for their entire team. All the employees stay overnight at an out-of-town pension or resort where they have team building activities, employee awards, and games. They&rsquore similar to the idea of company offsites or retreats, but much more casual. Last year, the Buzzvil team had our workshop in Busan to align with attending the G-Star Conference, but this year, we wanted to do something new.