Armour Hackathon

Team building, Innovation and Accelerated Development

We recently ran our first ever Hackathon, with some great results.

The idea was to encourage innovation and creativity by getting everyone in the office, sorting people into teams and getting them to tackle a variety of challenges.

Team Building

After two years of working from home and then hybrid working, we’re rarely all in the office together.  The first aim was to foster team spirits and remind everyone they’re all part of the same great company, so we mixed people up! This meant they were collaborating closely with colleagues they wouldn’t necessarily work with directly. We included everyone – so sales and customer-facing roles as well – to help ensure a focus on customer experience and generate a fresh perspective. For new employees, this was a great way to get to know their colleagues.

Product focus

Each team was set a task which would ultimately help with accelerating development across the product range.  The teams were looking at areas including improved encryption, our Unity video conferencing system, automated Chatbots, Broadcasts/Alerts and System Metrics.  Each team delivered a packet of work that will be used within future product developments.

Fun, Fun, Fun

Throughout the day, there were competitions and on-the-spot prizes and awards. We also asked people what they liked best about working at Armour. As you can imagine, the responses were many and varied.  Here are some of the responses that we received:

• Working with the latest cyber security technology
• Getting to work with some interesting customers
• Helping to protect national security
• Working on difficult problems
• Working on Government contracts
• Helping in the fight against cyber crime
• Knowing that people’s lives may depend on our tech (people working in hostile regimes, etc.)
• Great camaraderie
• Crap coffee, but we can get takeout!

The first day included pizza and we finished the second day with a buffet and drinks at a local pub.