TADHack Global 2018 will run on 13-14 October 2018, we anticipate 4000+ registrations. TADHack  Global is the largest telecoms focused hackathon. We have the broadest involvement of any hackathon as TADHack is for everyone, e.g. students, graphic designers, web developers, project managers, product managers, IT Managers, all types of coders, interested individuals, and subject-matter-expert. This weblog is our 2018 call for locations and sponsors.

Generally TADHacks run over a weekend. This is so people in full-time jobs can take part. TADHacks normally last 2 days but not through the night, starting around 10AM on Saturday and wrapping up by about 5-6PM on Sunday. Though with that said, some locations run through the night, and some run on Friday and Saturday to meet local preferences, e.g. TADHack Madrid has traditional run on Friday and Saturday, to not spoil Saturday night celebrations 😉

A TADHack is an event in which people from all walks of life collaborate on a software project focused on programmable telecoms. Occasionally, there is a hardware component, for example we’ve had some impressive IoT (Internet of Things) hacks over the years, including a dancing robot.

The benefits of running a location include:

• Promote your institution or business globally to people and organizations around the world interested in programmable telecoms. Examples of location leaders include: universities, local technology meetup groups, technology consultancies, technology vendors / service providers, individuals looking to make a difference.
• Talent assessment. You get to see first-hand through an intense weekend the creativity, thinking, coding, and presentation skills. People have got amazing jobs through their involvement in TADHack.
• Meet new partners and grow your ecosystem. You’ll be surprised at the many people you meet at a TADHack who are working in the same industry, that through working together enable you to win more deals.
• Support the TADS community, the largest open programmable telecoms community. If there is one idea that is common to the people and businesses involved in TADHack is: a rising tide raises all boats, by working together we create something far beyond what can be achieved individually. Together we win!
• We’ve been running TADHacks for 5 years, so have an easy to following guide to running a location. So even through you may lack experience, we can help fill that gap. But I’ll be honest, it requires significant effort and ideally several people helping you out on the day. Once you’ve wrapped up the event, you’ll likely sleep for 12 hours straight. But year after year location leaders keep coming back for more 🙂

With our continued focus on improving hack and location quality, we have core locations like London, Chicago and KL that consistently deliver 10-15 hacks per event of good quality that have the $1k TADHack location prize guaranteed, plus all hacks contend for the global prizes. If you’re a new location and you deliver at least 9 solid hacks, have the TADHack Global banner on display throughout the event, and have hacks across most of the global sponsors, you are a core location with a guaranteed $1k prize. Some locations prefer to focus on one technology, or are growing in size – they will compete for the global prizes from the global sponsors and any local prizes on offer.  I know this sounds complex, but it all makes sense once you’ve been through it once. This approach allows flexibility to everyone involved in running a TADHack location. So even if its your first attempt to run a location and end up with only 2 or 3 hacks – you’re still in the running for the global prizes.

We remain focused on encouraging hacks to make a difference in the world. TADHack is open to all ideas. To help some teams, a theme for TADHack Global 2018 will be on problems faced in some industry, e.g. Insurance, Farming, Government, Retail, etc; the specific verticals are to be decided. We plan to identify critical challenges each industry faces, ask for hacks focused on these challenges, and have industry experts help guide teams to deliver meaningful hacks they can hopefully can bring to market after TADHack Global. We also have tools and processes to help teams create world-changing innovations, for example on design thinking and effectuation, check out the last presentation in this weblog by Philippe Vayssac from Groupama.

TADHack Global is in its 5th year. We started in 2014 and had no idea back then we’d become as large or as meaningful to so many people around the world. Please help TADHack Global 2018 make a difference in your community and in the world, thank you.

If you want to learn more about sponsoring click here.

If you want to learn more about running a location click here.