MEC Hackathon Framework

Introduction

After the successful experience of MEC Proof of Concept (PoC),in order to increase and accelerate the adoption of MEC, ETSI ISG MEC continues engaging the ecosystem, and encourage all stakeholders to use MEC work to develop edge applications. One of the means to reach this goal is the organization of MEC Hackathons.

This page describes guidelines, general framework and call for proposals for the organization of MEC Hackathons. These definitions and guidelines have been approved by ETSI MEC ISG with contribution MEC(17)000606r3.

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ETSI MEC Hackathons

A hackathon is a design event in which application developers (incl. graphic, UX, interface, protocol designers and project management) collaborate in order to develop new service or application within a limited amount of time.

The goals of a MEC hackathon are:

• MEC promotion

Promoting knowledge and adoption of ETSI MEC ISG standards and in particular application development utilizing MEC service APIs

• Feedback to the standards

Gathering feedback on the ETSI MEC ISG on the developed standards from the end users and validating in practice their ease of adoption, applicability and flexibility in different fields of application.

• MEC Innovation

Fostering the creation of use cases, applications and services in the context of Multi Access Edge Computing within areas of interest for ETSI MEC ISG.

Call for MEC Hackathons

The page can be considered an open call for proposers and hosts interested to organize a MEC Hackathon in a specific location.

Proposers are free to submit a Hackathon proposal to ETSI MEC ISG, by identifying partners of the Hackathon Organizing Committee (HOC), e.g. operator, infrastructure providers, communities, venue representatives, e.g. a municipalities, and also communities and other organizations, ...

Among this HOC, only the proposer need to be MEC member, and is responsible (toward ETSI MEC) for the entire organizing team (the HOC).

To submit a proposal for MEC Hackathon write an email to
cti_support (at) etsi (dot) org

Suggested Topics and KPIs

Topics highlighted by ETSI MEC ISG as relevant for MEC Hackathons can be found at this page.

Suggested KPIs identify the success story for MEC ISG (e.g. identification of awards and trial opportunities for winners).

Guidelines

The MEC Hackathon framework generally includes:

• Focus of the events should be on the technical features of the proposed applications or services. Participants will be encouraged to pursue high quality of solutions rather than to spend the limited amount of time in communication/presentation efforts for their proposal. Possible utilization or preparation of partial solutions or products will be discussed for each event separately with this goal in mind.
• Testing activities such as interoperability or conformance tests may be held within or aside to the Hackathon event.

Roles:

• proposers/hosts submit a Hackathon proposal, that (if accepted) is under their own responsibility on behalf of the entire team of the HOC (organization, provision of the material and needed equipment, attendees registration, money management, … );
• ETSI MEC ISG approves the Hackathon proposal and help/support the proposers by inspiring with MEC topics.
• ETSI Secretariat may provide:
  • Technical support and expertise on planning and tools for the realization of the Hackathon, coordination with similar events (in particular Plugtests) by the Centre for Testing and Interoperability department;
  • event management, communication and marketing support by the Events and Communication departments.

Submit your proposal for a MEC Hackathon.

Criteria and Acceptance

MEC Hackathon proposals should follow the Guidelines described in the present MEC Hackathon Framework, and propose one specific Topic/KPI as theme or the Hackathon proposal. ETSI MEC will revise the MEC Hackathon proposal and based on internal decisions made case-by-case will provide an answer to Host proposers.

Terminology

For MEC Hackathons, the following entities are defined:

Theme means generic theme in area of technical theme e.g. in case of Health, it could be Future Hospitals.

Technical Theme usually refers to vertical area e.g. AR/VR, Health, V2X, Industry, but can also refer to a technical focus area defined by ETSI ISG MEC e.g. CRAN.

Target Venue Venue for which the application or service is created. This could be museum, airport, stadium etc.

Technology Vendor Partner a party that provides the target platform for the development.

Service Provider Partner a party that provides the connectivity & networking services e.g. operator, enterprise.

Target Venue Partner a party that aims to host the service or application developed in the hackathon e.g. in case of museum, this could be a specific and well-known museum.

Organization Partner the hackathon can be sponsored by number of organizations. These can be ETSI, other SDO or any regional, government or global other organization.

Host host of the event selected by agreement of the attending parties.