On October 26th, we gathered for our first internal Solvd Innovations Pitch. A great part of the Solvd employees met in order to give their speech, to support colleagues, to discuss urgent issues and, of course, to have a good time together.
Solvd Innovations Pitch aims to strengthen Solvd engineering community, to improve and innovate corporate processes/routines and social life. Due to it, Solvd employees were able to express their ideas on how they can make things better and solve problems here at Solvd in all kinds of aspects.
Our speakers had about two weeks at their disposal to team up, to brainstorm the idea concept and to create their presentation. This pitch was supposed to meet the following requirements: it should be short and clear, describe the problem, possible solutions. After a five-minute presentation the audience asked their questions. All of the topics were pretty vital for our company, that's why it caused vigorous debates in which all of the employees took part, as well as the judges.
This time the following topics were presented
After a pool of presentations the participants of this event had about an hour to discuss all the pros and cons and to make a balanced decision. Certainly, our C-level executives and Heads of Departments who made up the jury had the final say. Yet, we'd like to point out that our C-level executives promote openness and directness in the company and encourage everyone to share their ideas, opinions. The first prize was given to the team "VIN" (topics: "Solvd Social Stream (S3)", "Solvd Leaders AMA", "Newcomer welcome pack"). Their ideas happened to be the most essential for our company. Those were mainly connected with sharing current information regarding the news of the company, innovations, problems. It's apparent that all employees need to be up to speed. It increases openness, transparency and fosters company culture.
The team "2-gether" won the second prize with the topic "Telegram support for Carina/Zafira". Carina, Java-based framework that unites all testing layers, and Reporting Tool Zafira are products created in our Open-Source Division. Every day some employee is responsible for Carina framework support. It takes a lot of time to answer all the questions. So, our speakers offered to create a Telegram bot which could provide any information needed. Telegram provides an API for working with bots and processing information. There are also several convenient libraries for Python which help you implement almost any logic.
Finally, our third winners were "DK-Team" (topic: "Be healthy working in Solvd"). The state of our health is an important issue as well. In order to avoid the sitting disease, girls offered to organize a place for doing some sport.
Besides prizes, the main and perhaps the most significant point is that the best ideas will be brought to life in our company. Soon, we could observe all these ideas implemented. Solvd Innovations Pitch provides a great opportunity to be heard and to get feedback. And now we are waiting to gather again and discuss some new issues.
