Earlier this month, several of my colleagues had the opportunity to witness the energy, excitement, knowledge, and passion students in the University of Utah’s Information Systems program have for technology and problem solving.

That’s when Domo and one of our customers, Layton Construction, sponsored a hackathon at the Eccles School of Business.

The event attracted 10 teams of three to four students per team and marked the second time Domo and Layton Construction have joined forces to hold a hackathon at Utah’s oldest institution of higher education.

As was the case last year, one of our Major Domos—this time, Blake Woodward—got with the students a week ahead of time to train them up. Then on “game day,” the teams were turned loose on datasets provided by Layton Construction and instances created by Domo.

Over a 24-hour period, the squads—five in the undergraduate division, and five in the graduate division—worked to come up with recommendations and solutions for Layton Construction to better manage its construction sites.

While all participants received Level I Domo Certification vouchers and swag from Domo, Layton Construction and The U, the first- and second-place teams in each division went home with a little more, including scholarship money, Domopalooza 2020 passes, Silicon Slopes passes, and Level II Domo Certification vouchers.

But in actuality, everyone scored big.

“Events like these not only drive tremendous knowledge of our product,” said Dani Weinstein, who oversees Domo’s university outreach and global community and helped organize the hackathon along with assistant Zac Decker, Layton Construction vice president Jeff Metcalf and Eccles School of Business professor Chong Oh, “it directly ties to our goal of dramatically growing the population of Domo-certified students for hire by our customers.”

Due to how successful this latest hackathon was, more will be made part of Domo’s planned increase in such events next year.