By participating in the Start MUNICH Hackathon at the end of last year, XALT sent a strong signal in terms of promoting young IT talent, IT specialists and software developers, as well as employer branding. The promotion of young talent and the active involvement of students in real corporate projects are not a coincidence at XALT, but part of a strategic orientation.
“For us at XALT, entrepreneurship is not a buzzword, but a lived reality. Each of our employees is a creator and develops customer solutions every day. We wanted to pass this philosophy on to the students,” explains Philipp Göllner, founder and managing director of XALT Business Consulting GmbH. Participation in the hackathon was an ideal opportunity to pass on XALT’s entrepreneurial spirit to the next generation.
We at XALT are actively committed to the development and promotion of IT talent to shape the digital future.
The XALT Challenge: Collaboration between development teams from different companies
Through a private roundtable exchange, XALT learned about the student association Start MUNICH, which was looking for a challenge provider for its annual hackathon. It was quickly clear for XALT: We want to support this. Not only to provide students with a practical experience, but also to get to know potentially new talents.
XALT tasked the participants with looking at XALT’s own solution for synchronising Jira instances, Advanced Jira Issue Sync, with a fresh perspective and creating additional value for users through more efficient design.
At the same time, this brought Atlassian's modern developments to the university and highlighted the key role Atlassian plays in the economy regarding corporate collaboration. Using a One Atlassian instance, students were able to test the Rovo agent and the new Atlassian Intelligence features, demonstrating the added value that can be realised when these are integrated into Jira workflows. With One Atlassian, realistic customer demos, e.g. for Jira Service Management and Confluence, can be created using a pre-configured cloud environment and test data.
The results of the hackathon were impressive. Among the most exciting solutions implemented for Advanced Jira Issue Sync were automated status adjustments by AI and a dashboard that visualised collaboration between companies. These prototypes now need to be made production-ready in the next step.
From hackathon to working student: a success story.
Especially pleasing: some of the participants are now working as working students at XALT. “We believe that the best ideas often come from the outside. And who could think more freshly than students who are full of energy and creativity?” says Philipp Göllner.
However, XALT wants more: with the idea of its own Student Venture Labs, the company wants to take the next step. “We are considering whether we should support talented students in their start-ups and stand by their side with our contacts, our Atlassian partnership and our marketing resources. An incubator for student start-ups at XALT would be a great way to drive innovation and attract working students to us,” explains Philipp Göllner.
Conclusion: Win-win for students and companies
The hackathon was a complete success. Direct collaboration with students, the opportunity to further develop our own products, and simultaneously positioning our own brand as an attractive employer are clear advantages.
We look forward to further collaborations with universities and start-up programmes and are excited about the next innovative ideas.
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