Acer Hackathon: creating connections between universities and industries
The Acer Hackathon project was born in partnership with Finland’s Laurea University of Applied Sciences.
Both Acer’s and Laurea’s goal is to offer students a chance to showcase their talent and ease transition from university to work. As a matter of fact, students often struggle to find employment in their field of study.
Beacuse transitioning from university to work can be daunting at times, with this Hackathon, we renew our commitment to bridging the gap between university and industry, offering students the opportunity to experience a professional challenge first-hand.
Three concepts, one goal
We challenged Laurea students – organised in groups – to develop a social media plan for Acer based on real-life cases. We selected three significant educational topics for our brand: sustainability, creativity, and skill development.
In the first case, “Make your green mark“, students were requested to create a comprehensive social media campaign focusing on Acer’s efforts in becoming a sustainable company, engaging a younger target audience.
The second option was centred on ConceptD – Acer’s line for developers and creators. With “Let creators be creators“, we asked our applicants to design a campaign to promote ConceptD as the ideal companion for creative tasks for students and young adults.
The third pick starred our Chromebook portfolio. We challenged students to create a digital campaign on the importance of 21st Century skills in today’s world. And, most importantly, on how Acer Chromebooks can help learners foster their digital skillsets.
Each team could choose only one of these options. On the one hand, we asked them to let their creativity free and present the most innovative ideas. On the other hand, we reminded them to focus on Acer’s needs, scope, target audience, and budget.
Only the most comprehensive and engaging presentations would win!
Here are the winners of the first Acer Hackathon
A jury of Acer for Education EMEA professionals evaluated all the projects. On April 1st, we asked the groups to present their works during an online meeting.
Both Laurea’s teachers and Acer were impressed with the students’ professionalism. All projects were content-rich and featured a comprehensive approach in most cases. It’s been a tough ride choosing the winners! But ultimately, two projects stood out from the rest.
Firstly, the team of Nita, Oona, Elina, Anni, and Marika presented a ConceptD project called “Creativity Belongs to everyone“: a four-week creative challenge launched on four different channels, targeting different creator segments. The jury praised the candidates for the overall concept, structure and multichannel approach.
As for the second winning team, Isidora, Julia, Huong, Ajaan, and Caroline focused on ConceptD too. Their “Acer Challenges” engaged students from 3AMK in Finland and beyond to create and submit ConceptD-themed patches. Their out-of-the-box approach and original storyboards designed by the students themselves secured them a winning spot.
More brilliant submissions from the Acer Hackathon
As regards the sustainability topic, two teams caught the jury’s attention. Firstly, Tommi, Riina, Osman, Susanna and Pauline’s “#Acergreenmark” proposed asking Acer’s audience to record a 10-second “green action” video. Secondly, the “#acercares project” by Ahmed, Hans, Gresa, Gessila, Anas and Ty matched an educational and informative approach.
Moreover, ConceptD projects included the awareness-based proposal by Jarkko, Tarmo, Verneri and Markus and “Exceed your limits” by Anniina, Elina, Henna, Ida and Saara, which focused on the Nordic countries. Finally, Petteri, Markus, Laura, Jere and Matti’s “Creator of the year” introduced a yearly creative contest.
Lastly, the most inspiring Chromebook submission came from Anni, Liisa, Riina, Iina and Miro, with a concept based on influencer marketing to inform, engage and build awareness.
We want to thank all the Acer Hackathon participants and Laurea’s teachers for teaming up with us for this inspiring initiative. We at Acer were happy to give the spotlight to students and let them express their talents and skills.
Inspired by this creative hackathon?
Find the ideal EdTech companion for higher education students, colleges and universities! Contact us: acerforeducation.emea@acer.com