Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Farfetch launches hackathon to reward innovative ideas – Observer

Hackathon literally means marathon of programming and the giant Farfetch, the company e-commerce luxury fashion born in Portugal that is worth a thousand million dollars, will launch its first hackathon for the public in the coming days 29 and 30 of October, in the Port. The goal is to bring together the best engineers and developers of the country with ideas and innovative technological solutions. The winning team raises a financial prize of € 12,500.

"Farfetch operates today on a global scale and there are few technology-based companies in Portugal with our complexity," says Cipriano Sousa, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the Farfetch. "The hackaton is a way to get to know this reality and to encourage the community to present ideas and technology solutions to different challenges that we have," he explains.

Farfetch, founded by the enterprising Portuguese José Neves, is already present in 130 countries and is considered the second largest site e-luxury fashion (the first is the Net-A-Porter). However, it is assumed as a tech fashion and not a fashion tech: "in fact, we are a technology company that also has a business of luxury fashion, because in addition to our core business we have already started to explore technology services", says the CTO of Farfetch. Example of this strategy is the business unit Black & White, through which fashion brands can rent the platform and explore the business model with the same services.

"technology is so central that it must represent an important part of the business and therefore assumimo it from the beginning," he said, leaving a warning: "he Who does not adhere to the technology to explore new forms of business online will walk back".

The company is now preparing to recruit 160 engineers for their different areas, and the hackathon is, therefore, an opportunity of making networking, and attract talent that they are looking for. Farfetch wants to continue to bet on Porto and Portugal as a center of technology and will open soon an office in Lisbon.

they Are two full days of challenges, networking and a few surprises, such as a concert of Expensive Soul and the very participation of José Neves. Participants must form teams of between three to five elements and take your laptops devices and hardware that you might need. There are no academic requirements or technological. The proof will be the talent and the ability to create innovative solutions technology applicable to the industry of fashion. Registrations can be made here until October 22.

However, Cipriano Sousa throws a few tracks for the participants: "it would be interesting to explore the strand of the offline; looks like a contrassenso, but Farfetch is a mix of online experiences and physical because our partners are boutiques physical and an area that we are exploring is the same: the customer interaction in the store, through mirrors interactive or apps that work inside of the boutiques," he stresses.

The "pull e-commerce is another area that deserves the attention of the participants: "rolls back a little bit the concept of e-commerce because it is not the client, go to the site and choose the articles that are available, but, yes, to send a message to say that you are looking for particular articles with specific characteristics," he explains. This area, which is already having success in the asian market, it may be, in the opinion of Cyprian

Sousa, the future. "Join the messenger’s and chat with the e-commerce has a fantastic potential. It is an area that can generate good ideas."

This hackhaton account with the partnership of the municipality of Porto and the Microsoft Uk, a technological partner that provides technical resources, mentoring and support in the organization. "The Farfetch works with Microsoft Portugal", underlines Cipriano Sousa. The company uses, for example, Visual Studio or the platform cloud of Microsoft Portugal.

This partnership is part of a strategy of support to the startups based on technology that Microsoft Portugal has promoted in recent years, through programs such as the BizSpark and Turn on Portugal Startups, which has supported more than 130 startups.

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