🏭Hackathon School
"Get out of the classroom!". An innovative program by Barcelona FCH that aims to align education with real-world needs.
What is this tool about and why is it relevant ?
The Hackathon School in Barcelona is a a method and a framework that have been developed and tested several times by the Barcelona FCH team during CENTRINNO with the purpose of bridging the gap between vocational training and the job market. With this programme, the Barcelona team, is trying to connect local and global challenges, as well as communities’ strengths, with formal vocational training programs to foster the potential for local innovation practices in the Poblenou neighbourhood.
Generally speaking, hackathons are short time (1 to 3 days) events that uses a design thinking and human-centred approach to solve complex problems through multi-actors cooperation and communication.
In Barcelona the objective is to transform these events format into a real methodology to implement in vocational schools. This will strengthen collaboration with key actors such as students, local companies and innovative spaces of the Barcelona FCH to find innovative solution that could serve to solve local needs .
To set up the Hackathon School shared responsibility and roles were distributed among the pilot team as follows :
Fab Lab Barcelona: lead the development of training methodologies and design thinking steps according to CENTRINNO concepts, connected with the local businesses and organisations to co-develop the challenges proposed, supported in logistics (development of all the materials, including canvases).
Catalunya FP: Connected with teachers and vocational training centres, launched the calls, took care of the logistics with the vocational centres and the overall logistics and supported in the development of methodologies.
Poblenou Urban District: Proposed challenges, as for examples they teamed up together with Plàstic Preciós
So far, Barcelona implemented 2 editions of the Hackathon School , each of them aimed to design and implement a holistic and innovative methodology that will allow to structure their Fab City Hub as a real learning ecosystem. In fact, It implied the participation and collaboration of multiple stakeholders across the neighbourhood. It will make it 'real' because its main objective is to promote real challenges among the vocational training students based on local businesses' needs.
An Hackathon School event could represent a very significant event for your FCH since it will trigger collaborations and eventually lead to establish key partnerships with local Vocational schools as well as local business.
By involving multiple actors at different territorial scales (neighbourhood, city and regional level) it is a powerful tool to increase participation and involvement of different actors and communities making FCHs inclusive spaces.
The setting up and implementation of this program allowed the local team in Barcelona to obtain the following achievements:
→ develop a learning ecosystem through multi-stakeholders partnerships among Vocational Schools, Fab Lab and Local Businesses
→ fill the gap between the theory, taught in the classroom, and the practice, requested in the job market, by facilitating communication and collaboration among students, teacher and local Businesses
→ provide feasible solution to real needs
Organisational Practices
The use of this tool contributed to the following changes in local organisational practices each of them may relate to some of the three foundational aspects of a FCH: Vision , Community and Infrastructure.
OP1. Activating interactions and facilitating connections and collaborations among the different actors active in urban environments
→ The interaction between organizations, the challenges they think of, and the students is a dynamic process that imbues students with a profound sense of responsibility. They gain a close-up understanding of the 'why' and 'for whom' behind their efforts, which significantly enhances their motivation and commitment. In a parallel fashion, the businesses involved receive a steady influx of innovative and fresh proposals, infusing their operations with new perspectives and ideas.
OP2. Access and connection to information, communities, projects and initiatives related to the local distributed creative and productive ecosystems
→ Local businesses in Catalonia actively engage students by presenting challenges closely aligned with their own industry. This collaborative approach not only enriches the learning experience for students but also fosters a deeper connection between academia and the local business landscape.
OP4. Engaging with and creating new institutions through experimentation and prototyping of diverse assemblages of actors and functions
→ All the students attending the hackathon develop a prototype using Agile Methodology
OP7. Facilitating community action, while orchestrating a common vision.
→ Creating prototypes collaboratively to build a sense of community during the initial stages of idea development and presentation.
OP9. Create awareness around convivial forms of innovation, manufacturing capabilities, creative citizenship and social connections.
→ Developing the challenge itself involves becoming aware of the problem and providing a methodology for its solution. To solve the challenge this tool provides a step oriented process inspired on Design Thinking, one of the most common innovation tools.
Key Steps
Find here a list of suggested steps shared by the Barcelona Team for you to follow if you want to set up an Hackathon School program in your local context.
Summary Table
Do you want to learn more ?
The Barcelona FCH team suggests also to have a look to these resources :
→ below a digital platform with information of the challenges used to share companies’ challenges with students and engage centres in the event
→ below an article reflecting upon how the Hackathon School is a way for FCH to become learning ecosystem
→ In addition, you can always check the specific page about Barcelona in the CENTRINNO web page to have more general info about their work and their actions towards the setting up of their FCH
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