Important Questions and Answers

The hackathon is a cooperation between King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL) in Bangkok, Thailand, Nanjing Tech University Pujiang Institute (NJPJI) in Nanjing, China and University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (FHWS). The hackathon was initiated by the Faculty of Computer Science and Business Information Systems at FHWS. Moreover, the Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the Faculty of Plastics Engineering and Surveying, and the Faculty of Business and Engineering also take part.

The hackathon will be held mainly online. This will enable students from all participating universities to work together in international teams.

FHWS students can work together in their teams in person at the SHL in Würzburg on Friday, 28 May and Saturday, 29 May (during the on the current building opening hours) and use the available hardware.*

On Sunday, teams must work and present from home.

*While doing so, the applicable hygiene rules must be followed strictly: Keep your distance, wear a medical face mask (or FFP2/FFP3 respirator) without valve, ventilate frequently, etc.

All students, teachers and other staff of all participating universities and faculties are welcome to participate.

In addition, representatives of the universities as well as the companies providing the challenges will be involved to help with questions about the challenges, e.g. as mentors.

Participants are assigned different participation roles, for which they need to register before the start of the hackathon. The roles are:

• Hacker: hackers are persons who work on the challenges. They choose one of the challenges set, form teams and work together on a creative solution (a prototype or a concept), contributing with their individual skills and knowledge.

• Scrum Master / Mentor: Scrum Masters, also called mentors, are there to help the hackers along the way with their subject-specific specialist knowledge. They are not bound to any one team or challenge but can be called into action as needed to provide important impulses for working on the given task.

• Challenge Owner: Challenge Owners announce the problems for the hackers to work on. They will present their challenge at the beginning of the hackathon and will be available to answer questions at the very beginning and sporadically during the hackathon. The role of the Challenge Owner in our hackathon is taken by representatives of the participating businesses.

• Juror: Jurors form the jury, consisting of challenge patrons and/or business representatives as well as members of the participating universities, who judge the results of the teams at the end of the hackathon and select a winning team.

The teams are free to organise their collaboration on their own.

The official channels used for the general organisation of the hackathon and for communication between the organisers and all participants will be made available on Slack and Zoom. To join these channels, a Salck and Zoom account is required. It is also recommended to install the Slack and Zoom client on desktop.

Other tools that can be used for virtual teamwork include:

• Miro
• Padlet
• Ideaflip
• Trello
• MeisterTask
• Asana
• JetBrains
• Discord
• GitHub
• Slack

You do not need any programming skills in order to take part in the hackathon.

Every team benefits from the different skills and backgrounds of its members. The results produced together can be (digital) prototypes as well as good concepts.

Because this hackathon is virtual and international, all you need are digital competencies and basic knowledge of English to ensure good communication during the hackathon.

Hackers can register either individually or in pairs. Each challenge is to be worked on by a maximum of 50 hackers. The size of the individual teams can range between 3 and 10 people.

The hackers who register for a challenge will be assigned to a team by the hackathon organisation team on the basis of the information they provide when registering (university, course of study, etc.). The goal of this measure is to ensure that the teams are made up of hackers from all three participating universities. Each team should ideally consist of hackers from Thailand, China and Germany.

Within the teams, the hackers can organise themselves and, for example, form smaller groups that are responsible for specific work packages.

You can register via this link. Sign-up is possible both individually and in groups of two.

When registering for the hackathon, preferences for the challenges can be assigned. Depending on the number of hackers, we will try to ensure that all participants can work on the challenge with their highest priority.

Yes!
You can register for the hackathon until Wednesday, 19 May 2021.

The Orientation Day will take place on Friday, 21 May 2021 from 12:00 to 15:00.

In the first 30 to 60 minutes, the challenge owners (representatives of the companies) will present their challenges in detail and answer any questions.

Afterwards, you and your team members will go into breakout sessions to get to know each other a bit better.

A team will consist of students from all three participating universities, i.e. in your team there will be at least one student from Thailand, China and Germany.
To get to know one another better, there will be a moderator in each breakout session who has prepared a few icebreaker activities.

You can also use the time to think about your solution or project idea.

Further questions can be addressed to the FHWS Praxis International team:

• Franziska Meyer
• Maike Antlitz