Hope in Hack-for-Humanity
REINA ADRIANO
When Professor Mike Grandinetti first realized that students need to be more aware of the societal realities happening throughout the world, he decided to have a Hack-for-Humanity Hackathon to celebrate Hult’s Global Day of Disruption 2018.
In 2016 and 2017, Professor Grandinetti hosted two very successful Hackathons for his tech startup, Reduxio at Hult. He also organized and led a hackation in celebration of Hult’s first ever Day of Disruption in 2017. For the 2017 hackathon, he collaborated with OpenIDEO, the social impact arm of IDEO, where he co-leads the Boston chapter. The focus last year was on Hacking Higher Education, which also had a strong social focus. The focus is again on Social Impact this year. Mike Grandinetti crowd-sourced ideas from his students. This allowed the Business and Marketing Master students the choice to select the
social challenge that they were most passionate about.
According to him, a hackathon is a mashup of two terms, hack and marathon. To hack is to “create a quick solution to a problem.” The other word, he mentions, is a marathon, which indicates that the event occurs under intense time pressure.” With this taxonomy, hackathons accelerate innovation, lending change agents and innovators the ability to propose groundbreaking solutions with the right guidance and motivation. Having supervised over a hundred hackathons over many years across the world, Professor Grandinetti believes that the most creative solutions come from intense brainstorming and “hacking” amongst a diverse and cohesive team, leading to great breakthroughs.
There were separate challenge
tracks corresponding to four chosen NGOs. The Hack-for-Humanity Hackathon invited students to participate in one of the tracks during the day-long event, which provided both, an intense adrenaline rush and inspiring lessons to learn. Representatives from RecycleHealth, Rethink Relief, Rosie’s Place and Green Hope Schools presented their goals and the needs of their institutions. From providing schools in Tanzania and shelters, medical services, and advocacy to homeless women and children, as well as from recycling fitness trackers for under-represented populations to bridging humanitarian disaster response and recovery, the Hackathon was full of creative ideas generated from bright young minds.
Mike Grandinetti is persistent when it comes to change. He hopes to see his students