UTC Portsmouth Hackathon 2024

Over the last few months, I’ve been collaborating with the Royal Navy’s software house (DNA) to set up a hackathon for local UTC T-Level students. It’s the first of a series of events that will support and encourage citizen developers from within the Navy and from university and sixth form colleges in the Solent. The hackathon has already generated so much excitement within the Navy and the surrounding academic community. Subject matter experts and Senior Leadership from across MoD have pitched in with contributions to the user experience and the backend development of apps. These contributions will ensure the students have a real lived experience of working for the Navy on cutting edge solutions for real-world problems. 

It is important to us that this hackathon reflects ‘organised chaos’: we want to focus on collaboration, rather than competition, enabling decisions to be largely driven by students. The problem set has been deliberately left open and ambiguous, so there is endless scope for creative solutions depending on the interpretation of the teams. This approach will give participants a real feel for working in a team on a problem with no predetermined answers. 

I’ve learnt so much these past few weeks while planning this event. Defence offers such a multitude of novel challenges, and seeing the ideas, creativity, and talent that has mobilised in response to the hackathon has been really exciting.