Throughout the competition, students were confronted with various problems, in the areas of logic, leadership, strategy and analysis. In order to solve the problems, students should be familiar with some general information about management, consumer habits, average prices of goods and statistics of business phenomena in Croatia. In the end, the most important part is to come to a logical conclusion.

It is important to mention there were no correct answers and the questions were asked in a way that the jury could see how the individual thought in a given situation. They had 30 minutes allocated for each task and were expected to solve it in the best way possible. The criterion of evaluation was divided into segments of creativity, precision and personal impression. Even for the abstract assignments the jury wanted to see a creative approach taken by the students.

Of the many registered contestants (125), after the elimination there remained the best 12 contestants for the final. They had been given the opportunity to solve the tasks prepared by Bamboo Lab, COBE Tech, Inchoo, the association Osijek Software City and of course GDi.

At the end, students were given a task that involved introducing themselves in front of the jury. This was the only time that the jury had an opportunity to connect each contestant with their personality. As a little trick, the students were told that they will have 3 minutes total time for the introduction. On entering the hall, however, they were informed that they actually had only 1 minute. The students’ introduction was also evaluated and the final result proved to be a very close choice.

GDi was represented on the jury by Goran Marjanović (Project Manager / Solution Architect, GDi Osijek). During the decision process the jury were unaware of whose answers were being evaluated as each submission remained anonymous. The jury had a really tough time reaching a decision, especially concerning the evaluation of personal impression.

The final winner was Danijel Švelec, second place was Karla Bilandžić and third place went to Javor Klem. All winners at the ‘EWoB Business Hackathon’ were not only rewarded with the money prizes, but also received a student job offer.

We would very much like to thank ‘EWoB – Entrepreneurs Without Borders’ for the organisation and the invitation to the competition. Also, many thanks for the response, creativity and knowledge of all the contestants who proved to be among the best 1%.