The Jugaadathon playbook

Sahil Mehta | September 14, 2014

From 2014 to 2016, we organized medtech hackathons that helped build a community of over 2,000 technologists, clinicial practitioners, designers, and entrepreneurs. This work was done in partnership with the Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies, or CAMTech, which was housed in the MGH Center for Global Health. We called this initiative, Jugaad-a-thon. This post summarizes our learnings about how the design and execution of such an initiative.

What is the goal of a jugaad-a-thon?

An interesting question to ask before doing an event like this is ‘Why are we doing this’? There is no right or wrong way, but here are two different schools of thought.

1. The Generic jugaad-a-thon – The idea behind this jugaad-a-thon is to get a community together and give them free space to come up with ideas posing solutions to varying topics. Usually this exercise works great for building up the ethos of hacking to solve problems. If you are lucky, a couple of teams may realize the worth of what they have done and continue on with their projects well past the jugaad-a-thon. An example would be a healthcare jugaad-a-thon for RMNCH similar to the one CAMTech organized in Bangalore. However you get such a broad idea of topics it is hard to clearly judge one solution versus another. Some examples of such jugaad-a-thons are the MIT Grand Hackfest and the CAMTech India Jugaad-a-thon.

2. The Focused jugaad-a-thon – These are typically smaller events, but much more result-oriented. Organizers pick a specific problem area, and all the teams work in that space. This generates multiple solutions to a single need statement, which helps judge which of those solutions are most feasible. A great example is a recent jugaad-a-thon held at MIT for developing a novel solution for breast pumps. (MIT Breast Pump Jugaad-a-thon)

Both these forms have their pros and cons, but it is important to choose beforehand.

Community

The most important aspect of jugaad-a-thon is community. The idea is to bring a diverse set of minds together and not hinder the innovation process. Once this happens, a community of free thinkers & doers is organically created. Since its inception in January 2014, the jugaad-a-thon community has grown to over a thousand people. As this community grows, the medtech innovation space in India will naturally grow with it.

Finalize dates

The first and most vital step of this process is to lock down the dates for the event. A three-day chunk from Friday to Sunday, typically works best. Try and pick a long weekend to increase participation. Concrete dates makes planning possible: marketing, mentors, vendors, venue, etc.

Pick a theme/track

It is important to pick a theme/track for the event. This allows you to gauge the kind of audience you would be looking for, and helps in finding the right mentors and sponsors. The identity of the event may also help in later fund-raising by attracting PR focused on the theme.

Decide the size of your desired audience

Once you have a theme, it will be easier to gauge the probable number of participants. A broad theme will usually mean a larger appeal and a bigger pool of participants, though this is harder to manage. The focused jugaad-a-thon approach makes a smaller event possible.

Once you have a target participant pool in mind, decide on the number of mentors. A useful rule of thumb is 1 mentor for every 8 participants, or 2 teams, since teams are 4 people strong on average.

Also decide if you would want the participants to pay for a token registration free, or free entry. In free events, 40-50% attrition rate between applications received and attendees is likely. If you are target and for 60 people, make sure you accept at least 100 registrations.

Propose a budget

Start working on a budget template. Below is a list of line items for a sample budget for a 3 day Jugaad-a-thon. This also serves as a checklist for everything that goes into the event.

Category	Sub Categories	Details
Pre Event Marketing	Marketing collateral	Logo
		Concept and theme
	Web Presence	Website
		Facebook Campaign
		Google adwords
	Physical Presence	Fliers
		Posters
		Banners
	Networking/Community outreach	Cold calls to relevant communities
Venue	Venue for 3 days	Overnight access allowed
	Catering	Breakfast, Lunch, Tea, Dinner per head costs
	IT Infrastructure	Cost of internet. Bandwith dependent on size of audience
	Venue setup	Tables, chairs, stage
		AV Equipment
	Marketing material at venue	Backdrop (size)
		Banners (size)
		Standees
Travel and accommodation	Hotel	Rooms for mentors, judges, speakers and the organizing team
		Dates
	Travel and logistics	Air and rail fare
		Airport pick up/drop offs
		Travel to and from event venue
Marketing Collateral	Event branding (establish rules for public display of sponsors' branding)	Backdrop
		Banners
		Standees
		Stickers
		Pens
		T-shirts
		Other goodies
	Event information	Program books (mentor bios, emergency contact information) and Notepads
		Lanyards/ID Tags
		Collateral information sheets (Judging sheets etc)
		Venue Signage
	Prizes	Certificates of merit/participation
		Trophies
		Prize money (keep cheques ready)
		Mementos (for mentors and judges)
		Mementos for volunteers/organizers
	Photographer and videographer	During event and post-production costs
Media presence	Media presence	Pre-event
		During event
		Post event
	Social Media	Twitter/facebook marketing during event/post event
Organizing costs	Cost of time of organizers
	Travel costs for organizers pre event
Event material for hackers	Stationary
	Electronics
	Hardware
	Items that may pertain to theme

Find your sponsors

Once you have a budget in mind, move forward and engage potential sponsors. Sponsors value such events for the following reasons.

1. Access to community

2. Brand exposure

3. Access to ideas/teams

4. Ability to present their own problem statements

However, it is important to let the sponsors do all this without taking away from the community-based ethos of the event. Rules of engagement must be made clear to sponsors.

Marketing

Once you have your sponsors locked down, start your marketing campaign. This includes setting up a website, a registration platform, a social media campaign and a multi-campus campaign (physical print). This is probably the hardest part of the process, and special focus has to be given to medical campuses to encourage young clinicians to participate.

In parallel, start designing & organizing your marketing collateral. Finalized print materials for in-event may require up to 4 weeks of lead time. If you want to have a program book, make sure you ask mentors for bios and photographs well in advance. A program book is particularly valuable when it identifies mentors' strengths, since it helps participants find the right guidance during the jugaad-a-thon.

Travel and Logistics

1. Travel – Lock down on mentors/judges early so you can book air/rail travel for them. If possible, avoid honoraria. It takes away from the spirit of the event. Having their itinerary handy early is very helpful in organizing their accommodation and in-city travel.

2. Hotel – Try to find a hotel with good corporate rates and book early. Make sure the hotel has good airport/train station connectivity.

3. In city travel – Find a corporate taxi service. Organize airport pick up/drop offs through a dedicated point-of-contact; this is more than a full-time job. Ensure you have 3-4 cars at your disposal every day, for shuttling mentors and organizers from the hotel to the venue, and to take care of emergencies.

Venue

1. Complete control - Make sure you find a venue over which you have complete control. The venue must have overnight access. If the venue belongs to an external agency, make sure you identify all the rules and regulations applicable as early as possible.

2. IT infrastructure – Plan for Internet connectivity (bandwidth dependant on size), AV equipment (Projectors/Mac compatible adapter/Microphones/extension cords).

3. Catering – Budget for catering according to estimated number of attendees. Due to high attrition this is a judgment call. A lot of people also leave in the evening so dinners usually don’t have as many people as lunch.

4. Overnight security – Make sure there is security overnight. Organizers also need to stay overnight to attend to any problems that may occur. One organizer per 25 participants is a reasonable ratio to have.

5. Emergency services – If you cannot arrange for emergency services at the venue make sure you have a protocol for this. Circulate nearby hospitals/emergency numbers/taxi services.

Event structure

This is totally dependent on the organizing team. The way we have structured previous jugaad-a-thons is listed below.

1. Day 1 – Day session of panel discussions followed by a technology showcase. The day ends in a social mixer session. This day can also integrate exposure to a clinical site, if accessible.

2. Day 2 – Day begins with a session by the organizers and sponsors explaining the format of the jugaad-a-thon. Keep this short; focus on hacking. The participants then participate in a pitching session where they pitch their ideas in 60 seconds. This is followed by team formation, and the teams then start hacking. The hacking continues all the way till afternoon, day 3.

3. Day 3 – Hacking ends after lunch and teams present what they have worked on over the last 24 hours. The format of presentations is usually a 3 minute pitch followed by 2 minutes for questions. The judges then deliberate, which takes about an hour. Winners are announced, mementos and prizes are handed out followed by a vote of thanks. Everyone disperses.

Prepare your Mentors and Judges

One of the challenges here is to prepare mentors for their interactions with teams. A mentor’s role is to guide a team rather than trying to force their own ideas onto them. However as the platform of jugaad-a-thons is fairly new, not many mentors will understand this, and may inadvertently hamper a team’s progress. There are also times where some mentors are overused and some are left without any team engagement. A simple way to get around this is to encourage mentors to initiate conversations with teams and guide them.

Judging is often a much debated topic especially in larger diverse jugaad-a-thons. It is important to set judging criteria, with due emphasis on the progress a team has made over the past two days (the hacking quotient). Judges should not be a part of the hacking process to minimize bias. During the Q&A session, judges should be respectful of the team members, especially given the gap in expertise. Criticism should be constructive.

It is also possible to use the community, i.e. the audience of participants, to judge each other. While a bit technically complex, this model feeds into the idea of community-driven innovation.

Post-event

What do you do once the jugaad-a-thon is over? This is a question many jugaad-a-thon organizers still ask themselves. As an organizing team it is hard to keep in touch with every team post jugaad-a-thon, and many teams don’t continue with their ideas. One solution is to have a periodic check-in, 30 and 90 days apart, on team progress and growth. Prizes or access to a public platform helps promote this. Prizes can include access to incubators, grant applications, and consulting support, which may be more valuable than cash rewards.

Media

With the maker community growing rapidly around the country, there are several hack-a-thons taking place in IT, electronics and robotics. However, healthcare jugaad-a-thons are still something that are not clearly understood. You need to articulate the value proposition clearly and engage the media with a dedicated resource to promote the ethos of hacking healthcare.

Jugaad is not a bad word. It is uniquely Indian.