Hack the Crisis has sparked mentoring enthusiasm in hundreds if not thousands of people. It was magical to see people from private and public sectors, as well as doctors, social workers, politicians, hackers joining hands at hackathons to help teams develop solutions to help tackle the pandemic. Witnessing that from organisers and fellow mentors perspective, we wanted to help this collaborative vibe live on and help mentors continue working with the teams.
We have launched a special online pre-accelerator for Hack the Crisis teams, and now we are reaching out to you – experts, masters, team-nannies, rebels, purpose, and dedication driven mentors – to join our forces and help teams continue building their solutions. Join us as mentors!
We are looking for two types of mentors:
- The dedicated team mentors (or nannies as they happen to be called lately in the online hackathons) – with a dedication of 2h per week and taking care of one or more teams throughout the whole program.
- The “on-demand mentors” – a more flexible format mostly based on specific expertise and organized around mentoring days, where a mentor can indicate his/her availability.
If you want to be part of our Mentor squad, fill this form: https://ej.uz/HackOPAmentor
Btw you don’t have to be a hackathon mentor to join & bear in mind that this is a pro-bono good-karma activity, but we promise to make it smooth and enjoyable, as well as throwing some online parties (no worries, we have been running online pre-accelerators for more than a year now).
We are proud to have the driving force and masterminds of the Global Hack and the first original Hack the Crisis hackathon in Estonia already on board with us, along with some long-term friends and coaches from the #SWGMafia network.
Calum Cameron not only happens to be our former MD and still a very beloved mentor at our full-time accelerator, but also the man behind the idea to run a Hack the Crisis hackathon in the first place (that was further elegantly executed by Garage48 and the rest of Estonian ecosystem). Calum has a wide range of expertise and can help on so many fronts, including business development, value proposition, business strategy, company culture, and team spirit, you name it.
Next up we have Marko Russiver – he’s a co-founder of Guaana, the platform widely used for Hack the Crisis hackathon team onboarding, progress tracking, and evaluation. As he indicates himself – he’s a designer, co-founder of a startup and occasionally also an activist, although probably his favorite position right now is “Connected human” behind the Global Hack, so activist with a global impact. Marko was rocking mentoring calls with Calum for the teams, and also has a wide range of expertise, from cracking jokes to being probably the best motivator of teams seeking that extra little push or reassurance of their work.
When our team got more involved in the second online hackathon HackForce organization – both of our long term pitch coaches reached out proactively offering their help to the teams. Ginny and Gleb worked side by side and brought this collaboration further in other hackathons. They have also confirmed their availability to help teams during online pre-accelerator.
Training people for public speaking from Google, Microsoft and IKEA to Startup Wise Guys startups – that is Ginny Radmall‘s work reality. Trained as an actress herself, she has this special attention to speakers personalities and the ability to make even a geek founder shine on stage. Gleb Maltsev probably holds a record of most pitches heard and analyzed on the Pitch Competitions in the region’s top tech conferences from Slush to Latitude59. His strength is not only helping with the pitch but nailing those Q&As, which are as important online as on stage. As a matter of fact, you can read some of his advice on Pitching online in his recent blog post.
And there’s so much more – the mentor list is filling up with investors, corporates, experts and enthusiasts (we will announce more in near future). The Pre-accelerator program is starting already next week. Our Queen of Startup Scouting Karina Lapina will do the initial assessment on the team needs and then our Mentor boss Razvan Suta will take over the matchmaking. Also, some of hackathon enthusiasts and active mentors from Startup Wise Guys team are already on board and waiting to get their hands dirty – Egita Poļanska, Uldis Žeidurs, and Zane Bojāre among those.
Teams can apply by 10AM EET April 10 online.
Our team took an active part in the first 3 “Hack the Crisis” hackathons, helped organize more than 5 follow-up hackathons, along with enthusiasts from Latvian startup ecosystem we are running the Economics track of the Global Hack, and now we have launched a dedicated online pre-accelerator to help selected teams from these and other online crisis hackathons to ensure their continued impact and viability. We hope that this program will also become a platform for mentors and other supporters, who have jumped on the hackathon train, to continue working with the teams.
While the first teams are being onboarded on our online platform this week, we are happy to announce that our efforts are supported by impact investors and organizations such as the EFSE Entrepreneurship Academy and Slovakian philanthropist Boris Zeleny providing the program with a cash prize pool of 17K EUR.