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Why CYB is partnering with Climate Edge for its next hackathon

CYB and Climate Edge aim to help smallholder farmers upscale their business
Picture of Richard Bray

Richard Bray

Full Stack Developer

17 May 2022

It’s an exciting week for Caution Your Blast as we take part in our first bi-annual Hackathon of 2022. We’ve teamed up with smallholder engagement platform Climate Edge to spend three days working together to try and solve a specific problem - how can we use digital as a force for good and help smallholder farmers upscale their business?

But what exactly is a hackathon? Why do CYB get involved? And why have we chosen to partner with Climate Edge? Read on to find out…

What is a hackathon?

If you saw the word 'hackathon' written somewhere for the first time, what would you immediately think it meant? Maybe, a marathon for hackers? Okay, let’s work with that. All of us know what a marathon is, but a hackathon isn’t a hacker holding a computer and typing away whilst running (although that isn't a bad idea for an extreme sport!).

Hackathons usually span a few days and involve teams of digital specialists (programmers, designers, product owners etc) from different companies collaborating together with the collective aim of creatively solving a set problem. The different teams are tasked with building a digital product that answers the question set at the start of the week. These specialists are encouraged to use both their expert skills, tools and techniques, as well as some they wouldn’t have time to use in their day jobs.

At the end of the allocated time, the products created are judged on a range of things like presentation, completeness and usability, with the winning team getting a million pounds to share amongst themselves (only joking!). It’s not about the prize, it’s about taking part; collaborating with others, learning new skills, solving a problem, and taking a break from the day job routine.

Why does CYB get involved?

At CYB, we love to collaborate with people who genuinely want to make a difference. We pride ourselves on building open and honest working relationships, and believe that constructive working leads to innovative digital solutions that can make people’s lives easier. 

A hackathon gives our team the chance to work in a different way, on projects they might not otherwise do. It’s also a lot of fun - having a company-wide hackathon allows everyone to meet in person, in one location and hang out, eat together and collaborate with people you wouldn't work with regularly. 

But ultimately, it gives us a chance to do some work that can make a difference to people’s lives. For companies that need to build or improve an existing digital product, a CYB hackathon can come to the rescue. We love to partner with like-minded organisations, giving full access to our top-quality digital experts, in order to solve a problem. 

Why have we joined forces with Climate Edge?

This week we’re collaborating with the excellent folks at Climate Edge, an organisation with the grand ambition of creating a fairer and more sustainable future for global agriculture. Climate Edge connects smallholder farmers to the services they need to be even more successful.

Climate Edge and CYB have known each other for a while now - we both look to use digital as a force for good, to bring about societal change and promote the wellbeing of our respective teams. The hackathon has been a great reason to finally join forces and bring our different skills and experiences to bear on tackling a problem we both feel passionately about - in this case, how to make the valuable data and analytics within Climate Edge’s products more readily accessible to those who can use it to change their farming practices for the benefit of their businesses and the environment. 

We’re really excited about what the week will bring - the collaboration, the learning, the problem solving. Hopefully there will be some great outcomes at the end of it, too. Let’s get going! 

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