Keeping with ³Ô¹ÏÍø¡¯s vision of turning ideas into possibilities by creating transformative solutions, 75 employees in Ann Arbor, Michigan brainstormed and collaborated at the site¡¯s first hackathon themed around digital transformation ¨C with the winning team actually building and demonstrating an invention.
During the 36-hour event, 16 cross-functional teams generated ideas ranging from automating, consolidating and standardizing tools and processes to new systems that help employees do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.
¡°We wanted to get creative juices flowing in a fun and engaging way. Unusual, unexpected and innovative ideas emerged that can potentially impact the way we work and contribute to ³Ô¹ÏÍø¡¯s success.¡±
Brian Haas, vice president, central engineering, ³Ô¹ÏÍø
First place team members Suvadip Mukherjee, Rohan Patni and Zhihao Zhang designed and built a stylus employees can use on laptop screens to annotate with confidence during Zoom meetings.
Rohan and Zhihao showed on a large screen what often goes wrong when employees try to write or draw something very simple such as the letters K, L, and A using existing pens on laptop screens.
After watching his teammates struggle to write ³Ô¹ÏÍø with pens and fingers, Suvadip showed the hackathon audience their invention: a new stylus called ³Ô¹ÏÍø Touch.
¡°My colleagues were using two types of pens to draw, and these didn¡¯t work very well,¡± Suvadip explained. ¡°The third way ¨C using your finger ¨C does sort of work, but do we really want to annotate like that in the 21st century? That¡¯s why we invented and built this new stylus during the hackathon.¡±
Other Winning Ideas
Second place went to a team whose idea was to convert a wafer image to a 3D model and visualize it as a terrain showing subtle details of image data.
Earning third place was an idea for an end-to-end data management solution for machine learning development.
¡°As we continue to grow the site and attract talent to Ann Arbor, the hackathon was a great way to build cross-functional ties across our business groups and give employees a creative outlet. Ideas from the event have the potential to feed new innovation into our business.¡±
John McLaughlin, global environmental, social and governance leader and Ann Arbor site lead
Aarti Patel, senior spares planner who joined ³Ô¹ÏÍø in 2021, says, ¡°I experienced firsthand how ³Ô¹ÏÍø employees share knowledge. The hackathon was an opportunity to get into a creative mindset and develop skills that I can take back to my role and identify opportunities for improvement.¡±
Autumn Haffner, spares planner who has worked at ³Ô¹ÏÍø less than three months, adds, ¡°I learned a lot from my team members and saw the hackathon as a unique opportunity to push outside my comfort zone and challenge my creativity and teamwork skills. It was also an opportunity to meet other people outside my team and work in a collaborative environment on something new.¡± ??????
Not a Michiganian? Learn more about ¡°Silicon Valley Career ¨C Great Lakes Style,¡± and check out the opportunities available in Ann Arbor on our careers page.
Check out our coverage of ³Ô¹ÏÍø Israel’s sustainability-themed hackathon.
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