Zalando runs third annual Hack Week
Online fashion retailer Zalando is running its third annual Hack Week this week as it looks to encourage its technology department to develop new ideas and innovations.
Instead of working on their daily tasks, product managers, developers, testers and UX designers are being encouraged to come up with creative ideas, develop concepts and build first prototypes.
The event will include a range of complementary activities such as a Game Night, coaching sessions on design thinking, and a collaboration with Fab Lab Berlin, which will be supporting the projects with 3D printers, smart wearables and laser cutting.
The hackathon ends on Friday with the Hack Week Awards. Featuring the tagline ‘May the code be with you’, the event will see around 700 employees participate.
Robert Gentz, founder and member of the Zalando management board, said: “At Zalando we are continually working to set new standards in fashion e-commerce – as we have been doing since the very beginning. This requires a high level of agility. Hack Week offers our technology teams the chance to implement their ideas and develop their own prototypes within a short space of time and without any limitations. We are extremely excited to see the creative products that will be created this year.”
Having started with over 100 project ideas, the event is taking place at a number of sites and across different departments. Developers, product managers and members of the quality assurance and customer experience teams in Berlin will network with the tech teams at Zalando’s fulfilment centres in Erfurt and Mönchengladbach and at the technology site in Dortmund.
Philipp Erler, SVP for Zalando Technology, said: “The range and scope of projects is impressive: from shop and virtual reality features, to new process tools for our logistics centres and creative payment solutions. The ideas don’t just focus on the shopping experience of our customers, but also on our collaborations with brand partners and between employees. Many of these projects will be implemented later in the shop, backend or as internal tools, for example the initial prototype for the Photo Search function in the Zalando App came out of last year’s Hack Week under the working title Shazalando.”
On Friday the teams will present their results with a two minute pitch to the in-house expert jury. The best project ideas will be announced during an awards ceremony where there will be winners in 11 categories, including ‘Best Software Coding Project’, ‘Best Innovation’ and ‘Most Geeky Project’.
