Creative and smart digital services for public sector organisations developed at PSHACK100 course

Aalto University, in cooperation with Accenture, the National Defence University, and the organisations of the public sector involved in the challenge, is organising a Public Service Hackathon 100 (#PSHACK100) course which is built around a hackathon event. Organisations joining the course in the early autumn recognise the challenges and the problems which they hope can be solved by the student teams. The students are expected to develop solutions that will make it easier to transact business and increase the use of on-line and mobile services. Students will also be expected to show a client-oriented approach, fresh points of view, and an ability to cooperate in innovation.

'It's fantastic that we've succeeded in a short time in creating a new kind of course concept in which the university functions as a platform for societal development through digitalisation', says Johanna Bragge, Senior University Lecturer in Information Systems Science at the School of Business. In early September this year Bragge was presented with the Teacher of the Year award of the HSE Foundation in recognition for this and other work.

In addition to the 20-hour hackathon, the course includes lectures, group work, coaching, start-up cooperation, and visits. A total of 150 students from all of Aalto's schools will have the opportunity to participate in the course. Together with Johanna Bragge another teacher responsible for this third course is Katariina Kemppainen, Professor of Logistics, who originally proposed the hackathon as a new form of learning for Aalto in the spirit of experimental culture.

First organisations to sign up were Finnish Defence Forces and Finnish Government Shared Services Centre for Finance and HR (Palkeet)

The course is implemented by experts of Accenture's Health and Public Services division, Fjord's service designers and a group of professors and teachers from Aalto and the National Defence University. They will support the participating teams in creating and evaluating the solutions. Representatives of the participating organisations will also be actively involved in coaching the teams. The recruitment of participating public organisations is currently under way. The Finnish Defence Forces and the Finnish Government Shared Services Centre for Finance and HR (Palkeet) have already signed up.

'The #PSHACK100 course which is being held for the second time in the 100th anniversary year of Finnish independence, is elevating its participants to a new level in open innovation activities, shared development, and design thinking through information, doing things, and sharing', says the head of the project, Thomas Lemström of Accenture.

Students can sign up for the course until 24 October

Last day for students to sign up for the course is 24 October. The course begins with an introductory lecture on Monday 30 October and a kick-off event open for all on 31 October. The actual Hackathon event will be held on 16–17 November. The Hackathon teams have free hands to develop concepts and solutions to the organisations’ challenges in two days. Experts from the invited organisations, Aalto University, the National Defence University and Accenture will coach and motivate the teams during the competition. The winning team will be selected on 14 December, at which time the teams will present their solutions to the jury comprised of all the Hackathon's organisers.

Aalto University:
Katariina Kemppainen
Professor of Practice, Supply Chain and Operations
Department of Information and Service Economy
+358 50 486 9858
[email protected]

Johanna Bragge
Senior University Lecturer
Department of Information and Service Economy
+358 40 530 1032
[email protected]

Accenture:
Thomas Lemström
Project Manager, Health & Public Services
040 4897 590
[email protected] 

Kaisa Tahvanainen
Management Consulting Analyst
Health & Public Services
040 7283 966
[email protected]

Take a look back at the previous #PSHACK100 course (youtube.com)

Twitter: #pshack100 #finland100 #aalto