Britehouse drives innovation through group hackathon

The hackathon is open to all employees of the Group companies: 3fifteen, Firestring, Auto-Mate and the Britehouse SAP division.

"We have launched a new internal strategy to bring the different companies under the Britehouse banner together," says Rudy Gopaul, chief technology officer of the Britehouse Group.

"There is a clear need for the various companies within Britehouse to work closer together to leverage the intellectual capital within the broader team and continue innovating for our clients."

He adds that with the growth Britehouse is projecting for the next four years it is critical to continue evolving with the changing industry and client demands in order to remain relevant to clients.

"By staying ahead of the curve and proactively developing new concepts and solutions, we can ensure that our clients have access to world-class solutions that keep them competitive and are of relevance to their customers," he adds.

The hackathon will see 130 Britehouse employees put their heads together in teams to come up with new ideas. The teams will have access to senior management as mentors across the various disciplines, including finance, marketing and technical support.

Leading up to the hackathon, the teams will be guided on how to use various technical platforms, to prepare them for the challenge. Once the hackathon is complete, the teams will go through a 'Dragon's Den' style judging process to determine the winning ideas.

"We have several objectives with this process," says Gopaul. "We want the event to be fun, allowing people from within the various companies in the group to get to know one another better. We also believe it should include as many people as possible, therefore we have invited people from across the business to get involved."

He adds that if a concept makes sense, they will engage the relevant teams within the group to develop it and take it to market. "The teams who come up with the winning products will get a share of net profits of the products and there will be various other prizes as part of the hackathon," he says.