The World Wide Web, Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing - what do these epoch-making technologies have in common? Zhang Jiannan, founder of DoraHacks, believes that they all stem from the Hacks spirit. When the World Wide Web was born at CERN, it proved one thing to us: the key to changing and improving human lifestyles and work efficiency is to use existing technologies with innovative thinking to achieve breakthroughs. Zhang Jiannan explained, If we always start from scratch, we will never make substantial progress. This is precisely the core value of the open source movement and hackathons.
Ten years ago, Zhang Jiannan participated in the organization of CERN Webfest 2013, a hackathon event dedicated to exploring how to use technology in innovative ways to serve science and society. Through Webfest, Zhang Jiannan not only achieved an interdisciplinary integration of programming skills and physics knowledge, but also established lasting and deep connections with hackers from all over the world and from different backgrounds. As he participated in more hackathons, his hacker spirit became stronger and stronger, which eventually drove him to start his own company. In 2024, Zhang Jiannan returned to Webfest, but this time he was no longer a participant, but witnessed the event as the CEO of DoraHacks.
A hackathon is a multi-day social programming event that is highly inclusive and open - participants do not need an academic or corporate background to join. This feature attracts many talented individuals to participate. During the event, hackers work in teams and combine their skills to solve technical problems through software, hardware or business plans. This not only brings together physicists, computer scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to showcase their strengths, but also gives young developers the opportunity to break through traditional research frameworks, improve their skills, accumulate portfolios, and expand their professional networks.
“If you are passionate about something, you should be able to jump in and give it your all,” Zhang Jiannan stressed. “You don’t need a specific degree or background to pursue your dreams.”
For researchers who are just starting out in a certain field, hackathons are more than just technical challenges. They provide another way to enter a research or industry field, bridging the gap between academic theory and practical application. Many hackathons held by universities are often able to attract sponsorship from companies, which are used as bonuses to motivate developers to continue developing, and are also used to rent large venues to accommodate hundreds or even thousands of participants.
“It is these large-scale hackathons that attract the attention of many industry headhunters and mentors,” Zhang Jiannan explained. “They see these events as their talent pool. Through hackathons, participants can directly communicate with people from large companies and accelerate their career development, while also improving their programming skills in practice.”
In the 2010s, Zhang Jiannan often participated in hackathons on weekends, which became the cornerstone of his entrepreneurship. I used to sit in the common room of the School of Computer Science and work on my hacker projects. Most of my friends met there, Zhang Jiannan recalled, but then I realized that if I wanted to make something really great, I had to organize people and funds effectively. Then I started to skip classes and sneak into the classrooms of the business school instead of attending computer science courses. Zhang Jiannan often attended classes in the back row of the business school classroom, while planning his entrepreneurial plan. He communicated with his peers every day and evaluated various different business models. In the process of entrepreneurship, you have to combine engineering knowledge with business theory to think, he added, which is more interesting and makes the whole process a little easier.
However, it is not easy to switch from scientific research to entrepreneurship. In the early stage of entrepreneurship, you have to do everything yourself, learn and complete various tasks by yourself. Zhang Jiannan said frankly, The advantage is that you can get in touch with many new skills and new friends, but at the same time you have to force yourself to do things that you are not good at.
This experience also reflects the common dilemma of many entrepreneurs: choose to learn new skills from scratch, or find a suitable entrepreneurial partner and then delegate tasks? However, finding a trustworthy partner is not an easy task, and the wrong decision may even hinder the development of the company. Therefore, it is particularly important to clarify the companys vision and mission from the beginning.
“The solution is actually very simple,” Zhang Jiannan said. “The key is to invest enough time and personally complete key milestones to ensure that the product is truly feasible. As long as you have a clear business plan and vision, you can get support from all parties.”
Decentralized community governance
Many hackathon participants abandon their projects after the event, but Zhang Jiannan didnt start DoraHacks that way. He wanted to provide a platform for hacker teams around the world to turn their ideas into mature products. I hope that hackathons are more than just a recruitment tool, he explained, it should promote open source development and decentralized community governance. For example, now hackers from Tanzania can collaborate remotely with hacker teams in the United States, and then get continuous support to develop truly impactful products. This model makes the technology field more diverse and allows more people to be exposed to different fields.
DoraHacks helps organizers reduce logistical costs and provides participants with a more reliable funding mechanism, allowing hackathons to go beyond the limitations of academic institutions and attract more individual researchers who are passionate about innovation. Then, it continues to develop the entire community, allowing the younger generation of developers and researchers to be exposed to more opportunities and chances than ever before at the beginning of their careers.
Business models are changing fundamentally, Zhang said, noting that hackathons are becoming the cornerstone of emerging technologies, especially in fields that started as open source, such as quantum computing, blockchain and artificial intelligence. The process of product creation will undergo a major change. Future technological development will no longer rely on isolated and closed product development, but on platforms and infrastructure that hackers can contribute to together.
Today, hackathons are about more than just coding or networking—they’re about pushing the boundaries of technology, creating meaningful solutions, and opening up new career paths. Hackathons are incubators of ideas and have a lasting impact on those ideas. Zhang wants to help turn those ideas into reality. “Innovation in the future must be collaborative and open source,” he reiterated. “In the traditional social environment, the development of enterprises depends on the moat built around closed-source technology, which is inefficient and difficult to achieve. The future of true innovation will be centered on open platform technology, allowing developers around the world to continuously iterate on existing projects. This spirit of open collaboration is why the Hacker Movement is so important.”
Interviewer: Alex Epshtein (Editorial Assistant).
