MACH Alliance to host first-ever MACHathon January 22-29 themed "Getting Unstuck"

januari 20, 2021

The first of its kind virtual event challenges teams to showcase their most groundbreaking ideas and prove how quickly they can be turned into reality with MACH technology.

The MACH Alliance, the not-for-profit organization dedicated to advocating for an open, best-of-breed technology ecosystem for enterprise ecommerce solutions, has announced it will host the first-ever MACHathon later this week. MACH stands for Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native and Headless. As such, the MACHathon calls on teams to build their most out-of-the-box ideas using only MACH technology.

The theme "Getting Unstuck" is a nod to the grip the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the world, leaving people stuck at home in a way many have never experienced. Teams are encouraged to think about the ways technology can get society virtually unstuck, empowering people to connect, move and exist in new and innovative ways. Members of the MACH ecosystem will make their products, knowledge and coaching available to participating teams as they build out their projects.

"The edge this hackathon has over traditional ones is that teams aren't building from scratch; they're starting with microservices-based apps, which are essentially ready-made building blocks," Pascal Lagarde, VP Commerce of Valtech and MACH Alliance executive board member. "Rather than spending days writing lines of code, participants will spend the week pushing the envelope of MACH technology and composable architectures to see just how big and bold this approach enables us to be in a limited period of time. We anticipate some pretty incredible, forward-thinking outcomes."

Valtech has formed two interdisciplinary teams that will join, like all other participants, from physically anywhere in the world. The MACH Alliance will offer demos of the tech and mentoring from experienced engineers to help teams develop their projects. The week will close with virtual presentations, and prizes will be given to the winning ideas. Award categories include:

* Maturity: The award for the most complete end-to-end solution

* Usability: The award for the most innovative UI/UX

* Integration: The award for the most innovative combination of solutions stacked together

* Relevance: The award for the solution with the highest perceived value for the end users

* Viability: The award for the solution with the highest perceived business value

* 1st Annual MACHnificent award: The grand prize for the overall MACHathon winner

About Valtech

Valtech is a global business transformation agency delivering innovation with a purpose. We enable clients to anticipate tomorrow’s trends and connect more directly with consumers across their digital and physical touch points while optimizing time-to-market and ROI. We are a network of more than 3,000 innovators, design thinkers, marketers, creatives and developers spanning 5 continents with offices in 16 countries (USA, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Brazil, China, India, Australia, Singapore, Argentina, Ukraine). While our expertise is experience design, technology and marketing, our passion is in addressing transformational business challenges for our clients. Challenges where we re-imagine the customer journey and build new connected experiences. Challenges where we make data work in this new era and help our clients transform the way they operate. Our services including strategy consulting, service design, technology services, and optimization of business-critical digital platforms for multichannel commerce and marketing. 

About MACH Alliance

The MACH Alliance is a non-profit organization, governed by an independent board and does not endorse specific vendors, members or otherwise. The Alliance was formed in June 2020 to help enterprise organizations navigate the complex modern technology landscape. It aims to guide and show the business advantage of open tech ecosystems that are Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native and Headless. All MACH Alliance members meet certification principles that are published on the website.

Founding members include: commercetools, Contentstack, EPAM Systems and Valtech. The MACH Alliance welcomes technology companies and individual industry experts who share the same vision for the future.

Contact

Jasmin Guthmann
EMEA Partner Marketing Director
jasmin.guthmann@valtech.com