AcumatiCares
Acumatica Summit 2024 is now in the books and, based on the feedback from customers, partners and developers who attended, it was a resounding success. More than 3,000 attendees enjoyed three full days of informative presentations, learning-filled breakout sessions, and—as Acumatica’s Jim Desler, VP, Communications, describes them—magical conversations that “spark ideas, encourage creativity, and mold exciting approaches to challenges old and new.”
Many of these magical conversations and connections took place during Acumatica Hackathon 2024. Hackathon is Summit’s annual kickoff event that challenges developer and non-developer participants (e.g., marketers, implementation partners, system engineers, customers, and more) to create unique, innovative applications that extend the functionality of our universal and incomparable cloud xRP platform.
This year, however, they had a very specific—but locally and globally impacting—mission: align their applications with one of four of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals:
- Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
- Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation.
- Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
- Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
To say they met their commission is a huge understatement. Every team designed sustainably focused applications that offers the promise that could benefit many companies across different industries to not only promote business growth but also protect the planet—something Christian Lindberg addressed during the Hackathon presentations:
We are all impacted by each other, and sustainability will increase in matter, size, and the way we measure, and the way we take action. It’s such a big push in the Acumatica family, so to speak, and it’s going to give you a competitive advantage as soon as we step out of this room. The awareness around sustainability is going to benefit you, all the partners, the resellers, but most importantly, the customers and users of Acumatica.
Acumatica Hackathon Winners Take All
Hackathon teams were comprised of an Acumatica Subject Matter Expert (SME), Acumatica Developer MVPs, and other developers and non-developers. Each team had approximately 24 hours to agree on and complete an application they could present to our returning panel of judges, which included CTO Mikhail Shchelkonogov; CPO Ali Jani; VP of Platform Engineering Andrew Boulanov; VP Partner Solutions Christian Lindberg; VP Product Strategy Dimitri Blondeel; VP of Services Todd Kuhns; and myself, Sr Dir. Technology & Product Evangelism.
After assessing the applications’ creativity, completeness, technical difficulty, usefulness, and presentation quality, the judges awarded 3 teams with the top scores and a few prizes, including cash awards and additional funds to donate to a sustainability charity of their choice. They were also recognized during the Tuesday Keynote, had the opportunity to present during the Developer Track, and will eventually have their names inscribed on the coveted Acumatica Developer Network Hackathon Cup.
So, who were the top teams? Here they are in descending order:
Third Place: The Fuzz
Second Place: AcuCycle
First Place: Sustainable Shippers
Another Amazing Hackathon, More Reasons to Participate
Congratulations to our winners as well as to every team that participated in what is a tremendous kick-off to Summit week as well as a stimulating, competitive, and benefit-filled event. We also firmly believe that every member of the Acumatica Community should experience it for themselves, so to highlight why Hackathon is a don’t-miss-out-on event, we spoke with a few new and veteran Hackathon attendees, like Diane Cawley, Chief Software Architect, Savant Software, who has been a Hackathon participant for SIX years in a row.
What Diane enjoys the most is meeting other people and working on a team project. “It’s just getting to understand what other people think about different areas and when you have an idea, and everyone has their opinion, and you can kind of come to a consensus and get a solution out of it.”
Learning new techniques and coding is another draw for Diane, and this year, she’s excited that the sustainable-centered application is one her company could potentially “take to the next level.”
With all of her Hackathon experience, Diane has some sage advice for the Acumatica Developer Community: “Keep on contributing because it helps everyone in the long run. There’s always something going on, so you’ll never get bored.”
This is great advice for people like Ketan Katariya, Owner, Klio Systems, Inc. Acumatica Hackathon 2024 was his first Hackathon, and before it commenced, Ketan told us he was “super excited” and “super pumped” to join.
“[You] get to know great people, get to know the technology, and essentially, get a good start at Acumatica. I want to learn more about the platform. It is my first interaction at Hackathon with the ecosystem and community, so I hope to learn,” he says.
Though new to the Community, Ketan is already an Acumatica fan. “It’s a wonderful platform. I think It’s a wide-open sky kind of a platform. I think you let yourself go and be creative and get it out there.”
For second-year participant Evan Templin, Developer, Crestwood Associates, Acumatica Hackathon is about community; meeting other developers, people, and communities; and taking advantage of its many growth and business opportunities. Evan says he still communicates with people he met last year.
Evan’s advice for developers who are thinking of joining Acumatica, is simple and straightforward: “We are cool, and you should join us!”
As it turns out, Jennifer Douglas, IT Manager for Tobacco Rag Processors and Wind River Tobacco Company, agrees. This was her second Hackathon, and she says she came back for the people as well as “the connections I’ve made through the developer MVP program and here at Hackathon. [These connections] have been hugely beneficial for me and inspiring for what I want to do with my career because I’m not an ISV or a VAR, I’m actually a customer. I’m one of two customer developer MVPs within the program.”
Jennifer is the only IT person for two companies, and she says she wears many hats, which means she doesn’t have the time to implement some of the amazing ideas she sees at Hackathon. But she does bring the ideas home with her.
“I have come back with ideas and suggestions and talk to my VAR and our ISVs and say, ‘Hey, I saw this—this was really cool. I think it would be beneficial if we talked to them or tried to implement this in a certain sort of fashion,” she says.
On the value of Hackathon, Jennifer also cites the many connections that are made, the ability to get help and advice, the sharing of ideas, and the chance to be creative.
“A lot of these people are brilliant and inspiring,” she says. “When I come here, I learn so much from so many of these people that it’s a lot of fun. It was the best decision I made, and I absolutely encourage everybody. We especially need more females. We need more girl power.”
Countdown to Next Year’s Hackathon
With Acumatica Hackathon 2024 successfully completed, it’s time to turn our attention to Acumatica Hackathon 2025. Like this year’s Hackathon, it will be a tremendous opportunity for the Acumatica Developer Community to gather with like-minded peers; create out-of-the-box applications; learn from each other; expand their communication, collaboration, and coding skills; and have fun.
Says Eric Petruncio of Clients First Business Solutions: “Hackathon is just fun. It’s like interactive networking.”
We encourage all Community members to learn more about what Hackathon—and Acumatica—is all about by checking out the Acumatica Developer Landing Page, our Acumatica Community Developer Forums, and our own GitHub Acumatica Hackathon Repository, which displays the actual code each team used to build their projects.
Again, congratulations to the winning teams and to every Hackathon participant! Your unique applications may one day help protect our environment and the people in it and your engaged participation showed that diverse groups of people can successfully build the future of business together.
Keep on coding, and if you have any questions about the Hackathon or about Acumatica’s award-winning cloud ERP software, contact our team today.
