These days the term ‘hackathon’ can mean many things. More recently the term has been used to describe a style of program which can be best described as a “mini-accelerator program”, with the same lean and business model canvas tool playing a central role in essentially creating a number of potential new startup teams that pitch at a demo day style event at the end of the program. Somewhat similar to the Startup Weekend style of programs.

The original hackathons were very different, and instead of focusing on building a potential startup and acquiring entrepreneurial soft skills, they were typically focused on “building something usable”, be it a software or another technology and rather than teams with mixed backgrounds and skill sets pitching a potential business concept, primarily computer science students and software developers would participate with a view of creating something that works within the few days and presenting the prototype instead of a polished pitch. Our latest program at Innovation Dojo has developed yet another take on the hackathon format — enter the Dojo Health Hackathon.

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