CloudFest Hackathon 2022 – Greatest Hackathon Ever! - CloudFest

Close to 90 hackers gathered from all over the world to bring open-source projects to the next level: this is the largest attendance ever, even in the face of a global pandemic and the travel issues associated with it. Returning to a face-to-face environment sparked something in all of the CloudFest 2022 Hackathon participants, and a fire was lit. Here’s how it went down: discover the winning projects, meet our partners, and see some photos from an epic gathering of coders, designers, and problem-solvers.

GREAT HACKATHON PROJECTS, GREAT PARTNERS

Often in a hackathon, there are one or two projects that sort of get left behind—but not this time. Returning hackers said they’d not seen such motivation and effectiveness in what was achieved during just three days before.

Okay, now geek out with us for a minute on the eight CloudFest Hackathon projects that drove this event.
On the individual pages, you can find the team’s slide deck with the presentation of results for each project:

Just look at these heavy-hitting partners that stepped up to support us on our open-source projects, with focus on WordPress this year:

Our partners took an active role in the Hackathon projects, as well as providing local travel, accommodation, and catering for Hackathon participants.

SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?

The friendly competition really spurred everyone on—this addition came about through input from previous years’ participants. The hackers really got into it, even the social media engagement—hackers managed to recruit their friends from the open-source community to amplify their messaging. Even the results presentations from each team were slick and polished.

Motivation was through the roof as teammates spurred each other on to give their best. Individual participants even hacked through the night! The networking was non-stop, and teams were happy to collaborate across tables. However, the gloves came off during the big-screen Mario Kart tournament.

CLOUDFEST HACKATHON 2022 WINNERS

Most Efficient Team
for progress and results achieved during the hackathon, taking into account the complexity and challenges of each project
👉 Building a Performance Testing Environment for WordPress Core
The jury was impressed by the amount of work done in one weekend, and the team’s motivation. This could be the first step of a game changer for WordPress performance, and the team wants to continue their important work on this project after the hackathon.
Team leads: Jérôme Vieilledent and Paul Gilzow from Platform.sh
Prize: Europa-Park tickets and an “Everybody’s Awesome” Lego set for the team leads, sponsored by IONOS

Social Media Engagement
for the most engagement for the hashtags #CFHack and #CFHack2022
👉 Joomla! & TUF – Secure Updates
This team totally rocked social media during the weekend., heavily supported by the Joomla! community from home. They even created a template for hackathon posts, which others can use in the future.
Team lead: Benjamin Trenkle
Prize: Europa-Park tickets and an “Everybody’s Awesome” Lego set for the team lead, sponsored by IONOS

Best Presentation
for presentation of results with 3-5 slides at the end of the hackathon
👉 Securing WordPress with the WP-CLI
One command to rule them all, very user friendly, easy implementation, big result for safety in WordPress.
Team lead: Aleksandar Savkovic from Cloudways
Prize: Europa-Park tickets and an “Everybody’s Awesome” Lego set for the team leads, sponsored by IONOS

OVERALL HACKATHON WINNER

Joomla! & TUF – Secure Updates
The jury was not only impressed by the results, the presentation, the social media engagement, and the huge motivation of the team; but also how they developed solutions that could be implemented across CMS—which makes the results even more impactful for the open web.
Prize: An “Everybody’s Awesome” Lego set for all team members, sponsored by IONOS.
If these hackers want slippers to protect themselves from all that Lego, they’ll have to win again next year.

The jury, made up of representatives from our partners and CloudFest itself, had a tough job, for sure. All attendees scored a t-shirt from Cloudways and a free one-year Professional+ membership with Post Status. Way better than one of those blue “Participant” ribbons, right?

FLAMMKUCHEN IS THE NEW PIZZA

The post-event feedback was overwhelmingly positive. The inclusive atmosphere, competitive elements, diversity of background, and extreme focus from participants were all recurring themes. Also, the food: we replaced boring ol’ tech-event pizza with Flammkuchen, a local specialty. Turns out that all flatbreads are NOT created equal!

2022 CLOUDFEST HACKATHON PHOTOS, NEW PROJECT WEBSITES AND MEDIA COVERAGE

Check out the photos from the event on the CloudFest Hackathon Flickr page:

You can also see some coverage from our partners and attendees:

The results were also presented during CloudFest 2022 for an audience of thousands of decision-makers in the cloud computing industry. That’s a pretty important stage for Web Professionals!