Hackathons for Good at NASSCOM HR Summit 2014

NASSCOM Foundation organized a panel discussion on ‘Finding Talent, Finding solutions: Hackathon, your new and progressive HR strategy’ at the recently concluded NASSCOM HR Summit, at Chennai.  The goal for the session was to establish Hackathons as an integrator of HR practices and how they are poised to change the traditional landscape of hiring, nurturing talent, promoting innovation, and incubating leaders and as a tool for doing social good.

Technology has always been an enabler to efficient HR practices, but with Hackathons, it is expanding its role to create a platform that cuts across Talent Acquisition, Learning and Development (L&D) and Employee Engagement among other HR functions for the technology companies.

The panel discussion featured Gaurav Ahluwalia, Managing Director and Head - Human Resources, J. P. Morgan, Hari Vasudev, VP & Head, Yahoo India R&D and Kumar Sachidanandam, Senior Director - Innovation Group, Cognizant and was moderated by Rita Soni, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation.  The panelists collectively concurred to the increased relevance of Hackathons within the larger HR policy of an organization and suggested on how the Hackathons may work as a vital integrator of multiple HR practices while contributing towards society.

Of late, NASSCOM Foundation has been actively involved in Hackathons like JP Morgan Chase’s Code for Good challenge and Code for India’s twin city Hackathon. Both combined, saw over 430 coders from India and the US participate. The Foundation understands that apart from being a great HR tool, Hackathons can be driven towards finding new and innovative solutions to real world problems like natural disasters, traffic issues, environmental protection or any other cause the coders and developers can identify with or feel passionate about. 

Rita Soni, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation, stated “With representation from a leading IT services company, a financial services company and an Internet corporation, it was amazing to see a panel, so diverse in their lines of business and thought processes, talk in unison, for the adoption of Hackathons as a main stream HR tool and synergizing the vast coding potential in India towards solving social issues”

NASSCOM HR Summit 2014, titled ‘Change, Change, Change – Reimagining HR’ saw HR teams participate from across the 1600+ strong NASSCOM member community. This provided with the best possible setting to promote Hackathons as a paradigm shift in how the new age HR domain may evolve, to be in sync with the ways of the Gen Y.