ABAX ends 2020 with a unique 24 hour ‘hackathon’ to explore new innovative solutions

2020 has been a tough year for everyone, with so much turmoil going on in the world its easy to forget that a lot of people are working through these difficult times. Where we salute the health care professionals, the delivery drivers, and the people working in stores we would also like to give a shout out to a team of Abaxians who rarely get a mention. 

Unique gathering to find innovative solutions 

Team of developers are taking part in a 24 hour ‘Hackathon’ to help our current and future customers bounce back from 2020. The Hackathon is a uniqie gathering of developers who are coding on future projects. The project are something many of the team at ABAX (and most people in the world) don’t understand how or what is going on but these exciting development sessions re-inforce why ABAX is an innovative company.

“Hacking means finding a creative solution for a problem. It can be a totally new feature or product to help our customers, a new opportunity or an internal tool to improve our processes. We are innovative company who want to continue to attract the top talent and these exciting working practices makes us stand out from our competitors. We always put the customer first and having these events ensures we give our customers the best solutions to their needs”. - Wan Luo Senior Director of Engineering at ABAX. 

24 hours to solve a problem 

Starting on the 10th December 2020, ABAX proposed a challenge to a problem which needs a specific focus and requires the team to have free range on how to fix it. The development team are split into small groups and rapidly work through the problem. Although it may sound like an endurance event or a marathon it is more of a sprint over 24hours. Less Mo Farah more Usain Bolt!

Connecting people, and encouraging fresh innovation

A key value of ABAX’s business model is to not accept a problem but to find innovative solution. This is Echoed by Paul Walsh ABAX’s CTO 

“It's important to set aside time for this kind of inspirational and empowering event. We want to give the employees an arena to look for new solutions, be creative, and have fun. These practices will continue to give ABAX value” - Paul Walsh, CTO and leader of the Tech Section. 

Paul Walsh, CTO of ABAX is sitting in the jury for ABAX Hackathon. 

ABAX continues to grow its culture

Any business who take on two new acquisitions (RAM and Automile) as well as adding a new R&D centre in Gdansk will want to settle its new employees down to its own culture, ABAX is no different. This event is a great opportunity to gather the teams as well as new employees to help them get to know ABAX a little better. ABAX is growing fast; last year 45 people attended the Hackathon and this year it will be over 70 people across 11 teams. 

“With two acquisition and all the new people, we will see more collaboration, ideas and insight. We want to mix the teams and have people working in new circles. We want people to get to know each other and share their experiences” - Wan Luo. 

All employees were online to listen to each others solutions on Friday. 

A jury will announce the winner 

The teams will be evaluated on their idea, innovation, execution, presentation and theme. The Chief Architect and Senior Management in ABAX will be the jury for this year’s competition – providing both a commercial and technical evaluation. 

“In addition to the theme, we will look at our values: Enthusiastic, Innovative and Sustainable. All three of them will play an important role for us in tech and when developing. We will see a lot of innovation and activities from tech in 2021 including improving our platform” – Paul Walsh.

For more information: 
Wan Luo, Senior Director of Engineering, ABAX 
+47 910 03 156
wan.luo@abax.no

Paul Walsh, CTO ABAX 
+4748024971
paul.walsh@abax.no