Westminster Enterprise Network (WeNetwork), the University of Westminster’s entrepreneurial community, held their annual Humanities Hackathon at the Regents Street cinema on Monday 28 February.
The event, entitled ‘Shaping the Future - the Humanities Hackathon’ featured an impressive line-up of employers including Meta, Channel 4, BBC News, Mind, Brand Advance and WaterAid. Each employer presented a live brief with a topic to cover and the student groups who attended the event were asked to come up with innovative solutions. The teams were invited to tackle key questions in the industry such as diversity in representation and voice, with guidance from volunteering academics across the school of Humanities.
After going through the ideation process and compiling a three-minute elevator pitch, students presented their ideas and solutions back to the employers, who chose one group each to go through to the final. The selected groups then competed on stage and presented their pitch to a live audience at the University’s Regent Street Cinema.
First place was awarded to the students in the WaterAid group, including Victoire Georget from the English Literature and History BA Honours course, Maddalena Tenuti from the English Literature and Language BA Honours course and Naima Omar from the English Language and Linguistics BA Honours course, and Sarah-Jane Reading from the French and Linguistics BA Honours course.
They presented innovative marketing ideas, such as targeting festival goers and creating exhibitions in the toilet queuing and cubicle areas to educate people about WaterAid’s focus: water, sanitation and hygiene. They also came up with ideas surrounding community action, strategies to harness the power of social media and even an idea for an interactive app.
Speaking about the event, student Victoire Georget from the winning team, said: “It was an honour to meet all of these people coming from all of these different backgrounds. It was really interesting, for example I didn’t know much about WaterAid before, and it was great to present it as a brand. It was really fascinating, the whole journey and the process to our victory.”
Paolina Della Bordella, Senior Innovation and Strategic Engagement Officer for WaterAid who attended the Hackathon, said: “The Humanities Hackathon put on by the University of Westminster and WeNetwork was an incredibly well organised event, with strong, clear communication and expectation management throughout. We were really impressed by the professionalism of the event, and the strong engagement, collaboration, and innovation shown by the students.”
Amy Anye, Marketing Manager at Mind added: “We were impressed with the commitment and creativity of the WeNetwork team in supporting students to think about their employability and prepare for their future careers. Many of the students we spoke to were really passionate about mental health and had a clear understanding of many of the issues, so funnelling this energy and enthusiasm into something like the hackathon was great.”
The Humanities Hackathon was a collaboration between WeNetwork and the School of Humanities at the University of Westminster. Humanities Director of Employability, Dr Saskia Huc-Hepher, designed and led the event with support from academics across the School of Humanities and the WeNetwork team. WeNetwork is the University of Westminster’s entrepreneurial community, supporting students and recent graduates to work with business, develop entrepreneurial skills, go freelance or found Start-Ups.
Find out more about employability support at the University of Westminster.
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