The third edition of Krakathon was organized over the weekend ²⁰⁄₂₁ of October 2018.

The term Krakathon derives from hackathon (itself being a marathon of computer programming & usually mathematical challenges) and the Kraken (signifying the most dangerous sea creature). Participants are called pirates and they are given a set of challenges to solve in order to score points. The teams having the highest scores are seen as the pirates sailing closest to the Kraken :-) thus gaining reputation as brave & tough pirates.

Teams are made of up to a maximum of six participants. The competition runs for 24-hours. I participated in this year’s Krakathon with my colleagues thanks to a corporate sponsorship by LSL Digital. Our team name was Wachawi which means “sorcerer” or “wizard” in Swahili.

This year twenty teams from different companies and universities participated. Some companies even had more than one team representing them, e.g the Mauritius Commercial Bank having two teams and Spoon Consulting having three teams.

We composed a team of six that included mostly new recruits and one intern:

    Jules Giovanni
    Jeshta Bhoyedhur
    Kushul Soomaree
    Chittesh Sham
    Neil Baichoo
    Ish Sookun

The competition was tough and yet very exciting.

At around 20h00 on Saturday 20 October, when the scoreboard was first updated, our team was positioned second, with Extension Interactive leading and Rubiks (Spoon Consulting) at the third place. From midnight till 5 mins before the competition ends we lead the first place. But then, at the last five minutes Rubiks (Spoon Consulting) got ahead of us with 200 points more. We scored 10935 points. The final scoreboard looked like this:

    1. Rubiks (Spoon Consulting)        11185
    2. Wachawi by LSL Digital           10935
    3. Extension Interactive             9510
    4. Teletubbies                       9235
    5. Code Busters (Spoon Consulting)   8885
    6. Cyber Raiders (MCB)               8385
    7. Dodo SQL (OceanDBA)               8210
    8. Java.Ayo (MCB)                    8175
    9. Avengers (MSCC)                   8035
    10. Oceanus (SDWORX)                 6935
    11. Exception Handlers (DSO Group)   6860
    12. Trial & Error (Spoon Consulting) 6635
    13. Savvy Bots                       6500
    14. ALU 3 (ALC)                      6210
    15. Maureviens (Maureva)             6210
    16. Now You See Us (Aztek)           6010
    17. Business & Decision              5810
    18. ALU 2 (ALC)                      4060
    19. ALU 1 (ALC)                      3160
    20. Stapam (Stella Telecom)          1145

On Sunday at 14h00, we were tired, sleepless, but overall happy with the team spirit, collaboration and enthusiasm to spend 24-hours solving the craziest problems.

Yes, after the announcement we were disappointed that Rubiks got ahead of us at the last five minutes. That could be clearly seen on our faces. Disappointed but not defeated. Team Wachawi will be back next year!