My Experience in Sitecore Hackathon 2023

Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in Sitecore’s Hackathon 2023. It was my first hackathon experience, and I have to admit that I was both excited and nervous about it. The thought of working with a team to develop a simple application in just 24 hours seemed daunting, but I was ready to take on the challenge.

The event was fun, challenging, and exhausting, all at the same time. It was a great chance to put my skills to the test and learn from my colleagues. As an associate frontend architect at Verndale, I was happy to see that several teams from our company were participating in the hackaton. This allowed us to compare our experiences and share our knowledge.

I participated in the hackathon with Sandy Foley and Cristhian Castro, two colleagues from Verndale. It was the first time that we had worked together, so it was a great oportunity to get to know them and learn about their strengths and skills. We worked well together, and I was impressed by their creativity and determination.

The hackathon was divided into three categories: Best Enhancement to SXA Headless, Best Enhancement to XM Cloud, and Best Migration Module to move from XP (traditional) to XM Cloud/Content Hub One/Headless CMS. The ideas or the kind of things we were supposed to work with were announced minutes before the hackathon began.

With all the hype and excitement around new AI tools, we came up with the idea of creating a blog system integrated with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The system would allow users to write a prompt, and ChatGPT  would create a post with a title, a title, and keywords for SEO. Optionally, the system would ping DALL-E to create an image from the post description. It was an ambitious project, but we were excited to take on the challenge.

However, we quickly ran into a ton of issues, from server configuration problems to API compatibility issues. It was frustrating, and we were afraid that we wouldn't be able to deliver a working product on time. We knew that we had to work fast and smart if we wanted to have a chance of completing the project.

Despite the challenges, we were able to deliver a very simple version of our idea in just one sleepless day. It wasn't perfect, and there were a few bugs that we couldn't fix in time, but we were proud of what we had accomplished. It was a great feeling to see our idea come to life, even if it was just a simple version.

I have to admit that I usually don’t like to fail, and even less to fail in public. So, the hackathon was a -kinda- therapeutic experience for me. It taught me the value of taking risks and trying new things, even if there is a chance of failure. It also showed me the importance of teamwork and collaboration, as we had to work together to overcome the challenges that we faced.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience and learned a lot from it. I am willing to participate in the hackathon again next year and take on new challenges with my colleagues. It was a great opportunity to push myself out of my comfort zon