Microsoft kickstarts first ever global ‘one-week hackathon'

BANGALORE: Microsoft has kicked off its first ever global ‘one-week hackathon’ in an effort to answer chief executive officer Satya Nadella’s call to think differently. The event will have Microsoft employees across 114 countries, including India, simultaneously hacking to come up with apps and solutions for use across sections, including government, consumers, enterprises, non-profit partners, educators, etc.

The company says that this event is a step towards its transformation from being an incumbent to being a challenger, in areas like cloud and mobile, where it is currently struggling to gain market share, and promoting a culture of what it calls “growth-hacking” amongst employees.

“When Satya (Nadella) took over as CEO, he outlined a change in our strategy. We have redefined it as being a productivity and platform company, for the mobile first and cloud first world,” says Bhaskar Pramanik, chairman, Microsoft India.

The hackathon is about people getting involved in understanding how they have to change their thinking, in terms of having a challenger spirit, and growth hacking in order to make this happen faster, he adds. The company says it is trying to define for its employees what it means to be a “challenger”, and outline how to get higher growth rates.

“There are areas where we have low market share, whether it is the Windows phone or tablets. There is a huge opportunity in both these spaces,” says Pramanik.

“We are trying to get our employees to think about ways in which we can disrupt what we have done so far, relook every situation we are in, and differentiate,” he says. To growth-hack, is to have the mindset that you need to find the shortest path to success. “It is what we call ‘jugaad’, but based on principles, to make sure your methods stand the test of time,” he adds.

In India, over 2,000 employees are hacking across seven cities, and have thus far come up with 650 ideas. Some of these include TreeFinder, a phone app that aims to help people get closer to nature by allowing consumers to simply take a photo of a flower, or a leaf to identify the species of the tree. There is also an ongoing project for Travelogue, a Windows phone publishing app for travellers, and Curiosity Cat, a PDF or Word file app which directs readers to definitions, translations and meanings of popculture references in a piece they might be reading.