There was a great deal of interest and involvement from the participants in the Building Leaders Hackathon held by the Professional Careers Department at the Madrid and Barcelona Campuses of EAE Business School. To take part in the competition, the partner companies set challenges for the participants and use the opportunity to evaluate the competences and knowledge that they want for their Talent Programs. Federica Assandria, the Career Manager at EAE, explained how the idea for the Building Leaders Hackathon event came about. "During the individualized guidance sessions that we run at the Professional Careers Department, we realized how much potential our students have, and we wanted to focus this potential towards the real needs of companies".
The Building Leaders Hackathon was divided into two phases. The first was based on an interactive virtual screening tool with eliminatory aptitude tests, an elevator pitch, fact-finding tasks and an individual interview. After this first screening step, the candidates selected for the Hackathon were split into teams to resolve the business cases set by the companies.
A hackathon, a combination of the words hack and marathon, is based on a horizontal organizational structure in which each person's knowledge and experience complement each other with the aim of achieving a common goal and developing specific solutions. As such, while individual achievements are important, the communication that the team members establish between them is far more so. Hackathons are a very interesting experience for the educational community because they promote teamwork and problem resolution. The entire working process becomes a kind of learning experience.
In Federica Assandria's opinion, the real challenge of the Building Leaders Hackathon is "being creative, thinking outside of the box and leaving your comfort zone because often what we believe is right is not what the market is looking for". "They are all high-potential students in terms of their attitude, motivation and competences", explained the HR expert from EAE's Professional Careers Department.
Companies participating in the Building Leaders Hackathon in Madrid
Six companies took part in the challenge held at the Utopicus co-working space in Madrid: Maribel Osuna, the Talent Acquisition Manager, and Carlos Fernández, the Group Trainer Manager, at Enterprise Holding; Blanca Lorenzo, Talent Acquisition Manager, and Marina Cancho, Employer Branding Manager, at Leroy Merlin; Amelia Ortiz and Elena González, from the HR Management, Selection and Development Department at STEF; Natalia Fernández, the Director of People & Corporate Culture, and Laura Gómez, an HR Development Technician at Mutualidad de la Abogacía; Alicia Melgarejo, the Employer Branding and Customer Training Manager, and Nicolás Romera, the Director of Sales Excellence at Schneider Electric and Leire Arbizu and Ángela Ferreira Solano, from the Talent Acquisition Department of Santander.
The organizations set various challenges, such as proposing ideas for the salespeople of 2030, developing a new logistics operator, designing a saving product and devising an active listening model for communicating with customers. Blanca Lorenzo and Marina Cancho, from Leroy Merlin, emphasized the great level of involvement of the EAE students, their strong business focus and their preparation beforehand. "They had some really good ideas and a real desire to contribute. They are constantly on the move and have lots of innovation ideas to offer". Natalia Fernández and Laura Gómez described them as "thinking heads that are very malleable". Schneider Electric underlined the high level of the ideas, adding that the students are really participative and keen to make a good impression.
During the Hackathon at EAE Madrid, the judges evaluated aspects including the presentation, a realist and tangible solution (innovative and disruptive) and, thirdly, the consistent alignment with the company. The award for the winning team was a PDA (Personal Development Analysis), a scientific evaluation of the people's behavioural profile to identify talents, skills, motivations, strengths and areas for improvement.
Mutualidad de la Abogacía's Team 1 win the Madrid Hackathon
Alejandra Icardo and Carole Ivone Neyra, from the Executive MBA, Ane Elejoste, from the Master in Marketing and Sales, Daniela Cornejo, from the Master in Leadership and Coaching and Eduardo Aguirre, from the Master in Design Thinking, were the members of Team 1 representing Mutualidad de la Abogacía that won the Hackathon in Madrid. We asked them about the experience.
The challenge set by Mutualidad de la Abogacía was to design a new product for young people between 18 and 30 years old or, in other words, millennials.
We began from the starting point of the "main needs and concerns that millennials have in order to design something completely adapted and personalized., We know how quickly things change, so we wanted to make sure that it was flexible, but always insuring the policyholder's future. Our product is based on the concept that, using a logarithm that factors in their salary and lifestyle, each person can decide what percentage to save from month to month. In addition, thanks to the data, we can compare all the people who share common characteristics and lifestyles, creating a large community. The flexibility of the product means that it can adapt to their needs at any given time, because we understand that life is not linear".
Our product "has a double approach. Firstly, the profitability generated by monthly income is assigned directly to a pension plan while, secondly, the rest can be used on any other products offered by Mutualidad de la Abogacía. The money can be withdrawn easily at any time and, in the same way, you can start contributing again whenever you want. It is a trust-based relationship in which we achieve a win-win situation for both parties. All the money saved from month to month, that has not been used over the years, is added to the pension plan when the time comes. We want people to be able to insure the future while enjoying the present".
Presentation: "We had the opportunity to give two presentations, a more in-depth one to the company and an elevator pitch to the other classmates and companies. In the first presentation, we gave a short introduction in which each member explained the aspect that they were most comfortable with. For the final presentation of the project, we decided to show a video in which they could see the tool we had designed, as it was a direct way of letting everybody see the product first hand. Moreover, we decide to present it in a dynamic and simple way, grabbing the audience's attention and being very clear and concise, without getting too technical".
The support from Mutualidad de la Abogacía: "The company got really involved with us right from the start. First thing in the morning, we had the chance to ask them the questions we had, clarifying more about the sector and what they expected from this challenge. We have to thank them for the great degree of involvement they showed, because it is not a simple sector and they managed to generate a great level of interest and commitment from us".
Professional Careers: "EAE's Employability Department called us all together to show us how the event would be carried out, which groups we were in and the company assigned to each of us. We had the chance to get to know each other and start working on the challenge, conducting some initial research and defining our approach. The composition of the team was very diverse, which added a lot of value in terms of all the contributions. Getting down to work was tricky insofar as we didn't know much about the world of insurance, so we decided to analyse the sector well in the hours before the event".
Teamwork: "The communication between us was really fluid straightaway. We connected and worked together really well. The night before, we shared key information about the company and the assigned challenge in a WhatsApp group. We even created a survey for millennials on their saving habits and expectations, which received over 120 responses. All his prior information gave us a foundation so that, the next day, in the Hackathon, we could use the Design Thinking methodology to achieve the product that we were really looking for".
Diversity: "In our opinion, part of our success comes down to the great diversity within the group. We each made a contribution with our strengths towards achieving the objective. We were each good at something and active listening, respect and learning enabled us to achieve a great result. We all learned a lot from each other. When we had a good idea of how we wanted to proceed, we divided up the work and could later bring it all together and give our product a sense. At the end of the event, we all agreed that the best thing to happen to us throughout the day had been the teamwork we had done. We felt really happy with the result, but even more so with how we have achieved it".
Aspects valued most highly by the jury: "We believe that the success of our project depends on its simplicity, based on it being logical, accessible and free from complications, while also being innovative. We strive to ensure that the ease of the tool and its dynamism, adaptability and durability are the most notable features and the aspects valued most highly valued by the jury. In addition, in our opinion, the way that we believe in our proposition ourselves is conveyed to others, communicating the project in a comprehensible and reliable way. Our method of communicating and our conviction made the proposition more attractive, particularly when we had to present it in just 90 seconds".
Mutualidad de la Abogacía: Natalia Fernández, from Mutualidad de la Abogacía, explained that this is not the first time that they have taken part in a hackathon, emphasizing that this kind of event gives them "the opportunity to connect people strategies with business strategies". Moreover, she observed a great level of involvement with the company and that the philosophy of design thinking is well interiorized among the participants. In addition, the recruiter highlighted the variety of participating companies belonging to different sectors, not only human resources. This kind of initiatives are of great value to all levels of the company. "As far as we are concerned, they are really useful in terms of talent but, at the end of the day, we need them to help us with our business".
