Valuable tips  for success at the Garage48 Baltic Open & Big Data 2017 hackathon

Garage48 Baltic Open & Big Data 2017 hackathon will kick off in just 1 day and it will be the biggest data science hackathon in the Baltics.  It will put a special emphasis on new future technologies.  In order to make this complex subject more easy and understandable for you at the hackathon (and avoid the confused looks on your faces as the kids in the picture above),  we are giving you these valuable tips on how to prepare yourself a little better. Get ready now and thank us later :)

You can be a back-end or front-end developer, UI/UX designer, marketer, business developer, data scientist or data scraper – our  secret tricks will make your life easy and fun at the hackathon. :)
Our tips for Garage48 Open & Big Data 2017 are following:

1. Look through the list of publicly available datasets we have collected for you:  https://github.com/okestonia/opendata-issue-tracker . Pick the one you like but consider that  it doesn't take too much time and effort in pre-processing. 

2.Get to know your data before going deep into the analysis, i.e. examine summary statistics.

3.  Pick up language depending on goals of your project and your personal expertise: R is suitable for analysis of small and medium size datasets, also using ggplot2 library is capable of producing high quality visualisations https://www.ggplot2-exts.org/ has a list of add-ons to ggplot2 that will make your visualisation even cooler). Python has almost the same functionality and capable of almost all the same things as R, but also more suitable for analysing of large size datasets and developing more deployment-ready product. Look up such libraries as numpy, pandas, scikit-learn when using Python.

4.  Feel absolutely free to ask our mentors for any kind of help and advice. You can recognize mentors by their yellow name tags hanging down their lanyards. Their field of expertise is written below their name. 

5. Develop on subsample of the data to save time if your data is big.

6. Make the test set first thing on Friday and use it to estimate the true final performance of your model on Sunday evening.

7. If the main goal of your project is to perform a data analysis on some data - spend some time to make beautiful and clear visualisation of your results.  https://goo.gl/ZpsL8b - some examples for  inspiration.

8. Spend some time on finalizing your ideas. You can prepare 1  PDF slide to support your pitch. The deadline to send the slide to us at data@garage48.org is Friday noon (Subject: name of your project).

9. Practice your pitch! Remember it' s just 90 seconds, so keep it short and sweet.  
Remember the following when preparing your pitch:
  • Describe your background briefly(10 sec)idea, how the maintenance and further development costs will be covered?) (30 sec)
  • What is the name of the idea (5 sec)
  • What's the idea all about? What is the problem your idea solves? Target user count and description (30 sec)
  • Technical solution and if there is a revenue model (in case of non-profit how the how the maintenance and further development costs will be covered?)
  • Minimum viable product and plan for 48 hours. Who do you need for the team? (20 sec)
Little bit more about the hackathon and how things work over the weekend. 
Doors open Friday 5:30pm for registration and networking. At 6pm we will kick off with the presentations and the hackathon begins! Check out our website for a full agenda, “get ready” tab and available data sets. 
After pitching is over, all participants choose their favorite idea. To form a team it should have about 5-7 people covering all necessary roles. The mentors go around and submit suitable teams to the competition.

The venue, parking and the slipper policy

The hackathon takes place in Garage48’s home - co-working and event space LIFT99 (Telliskivi 60a, B building, Tallinn, Estonia). You can find the entrance next to Rattapood Jooks, enter the glass door and reach the 2nd floor.
The venue will be opened 24/7 and there will be a security guard during the night making sure that only participants can be in the venue. (So please wear your nametag that you get on the door.)
You can park your car at our paid parking lot inside Telliskivi quarter. Enter to parking lot from Telliskivi street and follow the signs. There are two ticket machines for issuing parking tickets in the area – first in the entrance (M-parking zone EP18 for parking near the orange building area), the second one in the big parking lot (M-parking zone EP86 for parking in Telliskivi Creative City parking lots). Parking is organized by EuroPark, for more information call +372 661 0223.
We have a slipper policy at the venue. So please bring your own slippers!

Eat. Drink. Hack. Repeat.
We provide full catering at the venue (check the agenda). There’s also snacks/drinks/coffee available, so you can fully focus on your work.
 
Mentors
We have arranged a team of local and international mentors to work with the teams. Read about the mentors on our website. Be open, ask for their advice and contacts but also be ready for some tough love - this is a competition!

Slack
If you registered, you have been invited to the hackathon Slack group. Please join to get all the necessary information and ask/answer questions. This will be the main information channel during the hackathon!
If you are new to Slack, follow these instructions: https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/218080037 It is a great tool to try out ;) (If you didn’t receive an invitation, please let us know.) 

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter and use the hashtag #Garage48 to share/tweet/insta/snap to let the world know about your new mind-blowing idea!

If You have any more questions, contact us at data@garage48.org !

The most important thing is to bring a positive attitude, an open mind and lots of energy!

See you at the hackathon!

About the author

mari hanikat

Mari is the CEO at Garage48. She is a very strong and mission-driven leader not afraid to go places no one has been before and help people. 🚀

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