Hackathon in Porto
The Porto hackathon was the international finale of Hacking Heroes.
After several months of local workshops and remote contact, participants from Poland and Portugal met in person, selected project ideas and formed mixed teams. Over five intensive days, they worked to turn those ideas into working digital projects.
For many of them it was a first experience of building something in an international team — and of discovering how much of that work is communication rather than code.
Arriving and choosing the ideas
The two groups had spent roughly three months learning in parallel, in Kalisz and in Espinho, communicating only at a distance. Porto was the first time they were in a room together.
Voting on which project ideas to take forward, on the first day in Porto.
Participants had developed ideas for websites and applications during their local workshops. In Porto they voted on which of those ideas to take forward.
A place to build
The hackathon was hosted at Blip in Porto. The company provided the venue where the international teams could work together throughout the event.
Creating international teams
Teams were formed across the two national groups rather than within them, so that every project involved participants from both countries working in a shared second language.
Planning documents written before the project describe an intended structure of seven four-person teams. Whether the teams formed that way in practice is not confirmed by the available sources, and the record here should not be read as saying they did.
An international team presenting their project to the hackathon audience.
Planning, building and presenting
Over the five days the teams divided responsibilities, worked through technical and communication problems, tested their ideas and prepared to present them. Each team presented the result of its collaboration at the end of the five days.
What each team built, and how the five days ran hour by hour, is not recorded in the material that survives.