Digital innovation and entrepreneurship transformation through open data hackathons: Design strategies for successful start-up settings

Abstract

The organization of open data hackathons or digital innovation competitions is a significant opportunity for nascent entrepreneurs to collaborate with external partners, promote new ideas and extend their applications to a new start-up. Prior studies have not thoroughly compared the execution of different strategies in many hackathons or digital innovation competitions. They only focus on the actions that the organizers of a specific hackathon have implemented or the challenges they have faced. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine goals and design strategies that contribute to the successful execution of open data hackathons and innovation competitions. Six case studies of open data hackathons and innovation competitions held between 2014 and 2018 in Thessaloniki have been explored to understand the co-ordination between the multiple stakeholders of these events and improve the execution of open data hackathons and innovation competitions. The outcomes indicate that the most critical design strategy was the involvement of mentors in the event and the level of support provided to nascent entrepreneurs to accelerate their creativity, develop applications and launch their prototypes on the market.

Full text

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
Digital innovation and entrepreneurship transformation through open data hackathons:
Design strategies for successful start-up settings
Fotis Kitsios, Maria Kamariotou
Department of Applied Informatics, University of Macedonia, 156 Egnatia Str., 54636
Thessaloniki, Greece
Abstract
The organization of open data hackathons or digital innovation competitions is a significant
opportunity for nascent entrepreneurs to collaborate with external partners, promote new ideas and
extend their applications to a new start-up. Prior studies have not thoroughly compared the
execution of different strategies in many hackathons or digital innovation competitions. They only
focus on the actions that the organizers of a specific hackathon have implemented or the challenges
they have faced. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine goals and design strategies that
contribute to the successful execution of open data hackathons and innovation competitions. Six
case studies of open data hackathons and innovation competitions held between 2014 and 2018 in
Thessaloniki have been explored to understand the co-ordination between the multiple stakeholders
of these events and improve the execution of open data hackathons and innovation competitions.
The outcomes indicate that the most critical design strategy was the involvement of mentors in the
event and the level of support provided to nascent entrepreneurs to accelerate their creativity,
develop applications and launch their prototypes on the market.
Keywords
Entrepreneurship ecosystem; Start-ups; Digital technologies; Open data hackathons; Innovation
1. Introduction
The innovation potential of digital and data-driven technologies has emerged as a significant area
of interest in recent years. In today’s competitive context, entrepreneurs focus on learning how to
exploit the knowledge and potential value of open data to design and implement innovation in
products and services (Bresciani et al., 2021; Kallinikos et al., 2013; Zeng & Glaister, 2018). The
sharing of open data provides several opportunities for nascent entrepreneurs, and the use of data
from multiple sources leads to the creation of new datasets, information and applications.
Moreover, the use of open data increases innovation. It provides opportunities to application
developers, nascent entrepreneurs and businesses to collaborate and develop new business models
based on open data for economic and social gains (Bresciani et al., 2021; Sadiq & Indulska, 2017;
Zuiderwijk & Spiers, 2019).
The value of published data is not only for public organizations, but this value is distributed by all
the actors of an open data network. These actors may be public sector organizations, data providers,
service and infrastructure providers, businesses, developers, research centers and academic
institutions and nascent entrepreneurs (Lindman et al., 2014; Pappas et al., 2018). In the current
literature, the advantages of entrepreneurs utilizing open data have been identified. Open data helps
them develop new business models and boost innovation, profitability and competitiveness.
Another benefit is developing innovative products and digital platforms built on open data that

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
increase innovation (Bresciani et al., 2021; Conradie & Choenni, 2014). Nascent entrepreneurs can
use software to visualize data to make more effective choices in the creation of digital platforms for
the public (Barrett et al., 2015; Kitsios & Kamariotou, 2019a; Kitsios & Kamariotou, 2019b).
Therefore, open data should be part of a whole ecosystem to enable innovative products and
services and improve the efficiency of existing businesses or public organizations through the
utilization of enabling platforms (Ayele et al., 2015; Pope & Greene, 2003; Rosell et al., 2014).
Their involvement in open data hackathons is an essential opportunity for public institutions and
companies to cooperate in order to create a win-win scenario for them.
Open data hackathons or digital innovation competitions are events where people from various
sectors collaborate to build platforms that will provide benefits to the public, creating a win-win
scenario for all the actors involved. In the hope of promoting digital services, which could be the
fundamental element of developing new start-ups, government agencies coordinate such events.
This is an outstanding way of growing entrepreneurship (Komssi et al., 2015). In this way,
developers could extend their applications to a new start-up as they can efficiently collaborate with
the help of organizers because they have access to the required infrastructure in terms of increasing
entrepreneurship, and hackathons can be an excellent experience as nascent entrepreneurs
cooperate with external partners to promote new ideas (Zhao et al., 2016). Unfortunately, many
applications produced in hackathons are discarded only by providing access to open data that is not
enough to boost economic benefits (Ayele et al., 2015; Frey & Luks, 2016).
Given the popularity of hackathons, prior studies have not thoroughly concentrated on the planning
and assessment processes of these competitions (Alba et al., 2016; Komssi et al., 2016; Rosell et
al., 2014). Scholars have not compared the execution of different strategies in many hackathons or
digital innovation competitions. They only focus on the actions that the organizers of a specific
hackathon have implemented or the challenges they have faced. In addition, these researchers have
concentrated only on executing these contests overlooking the design strategies that lead to their
success. Moreover, these factors have not yet been explored in open data, even though researchers
concentrate on them because they influence the decision of nascent entrepreneurs to build a start-up
(Lee et al., 2015; Rosell et al., 2014). The main research question of this paper is: How can
hackathons and innovation contests be organized to achieve specific goals? Information about how
to organize a hackathon can be easily found online, but most of these data does not present the
perspectives of different stakeholders involved in these events does not consider the continuation of
hackathon projects afterwards. Furthermore, studies do not compare hackathons across different
design elements to assess their success regarding to the intended goals of the events. Thus, the
purpose of this paper is to examine goals and design strategies that contribute to the successful
execution of open data hackathons and innovation competitions. Six case studies of open data
hackathons and innovation competitions held between 2014 and 2018 in Thessaloniki have been
explored to understand the co-ordination between the multiple stakeholders of these events and
improve the execution of open data hackathons and innovation competitions. In this article, we
examine several goals around which a hackathon or an innovation contest can be hosted, and then
some of the design strategies that can be implemented to achieve such goals. Our discussion is
based on our empirical studies of six hackathons and innovation contests, including different types
of events. Multiple stakeholders who have participated in these events provided their experience
about the main challenges, obstacles and barriers in organizing these events.

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
The structure of this paper is the following. The first section presents a brief introduction to the
area and demonstrates the significance of this study and the research gap. The second section
presents the theoretical analysis of the paper. The third section introduces the methodology used,
and the fourth section discusses the outcomes of this analysis. Ultimately, the final section
concludes the paper and suggests avenues for future research.
2. Literature review
2.1 Organization of open data hackathons
Business model innovation literature has become an important research area in recent years.
Business models are critical aspects for entrepreneurs in order to create and deliver value to
customers. An innovative business model can be a source of competitive advantage for different
ventures (such as start-ups) and support them to transform processes, products or services to
increase value (Zott et al., 2011). Business model innovation is a source of value creation and
competitive advantage, and it is essential to understand the challenges that represent changing the
key elements of a firm’s business model (Schneider & Spieth, 2013; Spieth et al., 2014). While
innovative business models positively influence the performance of entrepreneurial firms, a better
understanding of the phenomenon is required (Foss & Saebi, 2017). Therefore, hackathons offer
significant opportunities for nascent entrepreneurs to use technological resources and collaborate
with many stakeholders (individuals, government, businesses, institutions, etc.) to innovate and
create value, products and services (Bacon et al., 2019; Bresciani et al., 2021).
Hackathons are internal or external events including various goals or implementation processes,
including essential attributes and structure, where small teams collaborate to develop digital
prototypes in a restricted measure of time. The critical subject of hackathons is technology, and
individuals are spurred to participate in these events to collaborate with new teams and get familiar
with technological advancements. Internal hackathons are coordinated by organizations that intend
to help teams create novel ideas in software engineering. These hackathons are innovative-oriented
because they centre around the creation of novel ideas. Hackathons are typically technologically
oriented, but this does not preclude from developing prototypes based on hardware. There are
likewise different classifications of hackathons, relying upon application type, on API or language
utilized or on the demographic attributes of the attendees. Another type of hackathon is civic or
socially-oriented hackathons. The key purpose of this type of hackathon is to enhance digital
services for citizens (Adamczyk et al., 2012; Komssi et al., 2016).Krishnamurthy & Awazu (2016)
mentioned that civic hackathons are time-restricted events where employees from public
organizations, businesses and citizens cooperate to create digital services that enhance citizens’ life.
Civic applications based on open data increase civic engagement, innovation and create economic
and social value. Rosell et al. (2014) highlighted that hackathons give numerous chances to
organizations, since they can evaluate their new products and services and create novel ideas. The
technology which is viewed as being given to attendees is a solid inspiration to participate because
they will gain some useful knowledge, and teams are stimulated to create new platforms.
According to existing literature, organizers use three main stages to host a hackathon or an
innovation contest. In the first stage, organizers need to identify the objectives and goals of the
event. At that point, they need to announce the competition through social media, emails, posters

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
and send invitations to enhance engagement. The third stage incorporates tasks regarding the
planning of the competition (or example technical resources, software libraries, APIs, Wi-Fi access,
networking facilities, physical space, small breakout conference rooms, and the logistics of the
contest). As all hackathons have a prize for winners and a set of criteria, these must be identified in
this stage. Finally, the members of the jury committee that will assess the new digital platforms and
the sponsors that will support winners must be invited (Kitsios & Kamariotou, 2018; Zuiderwijk et
al., 2015a; b).
Specifically, Rosell et al. (2014) suggested a model which includes six activities to design a
hackathon. The first one refers to the definition of goals and objectives of the hackathon. The
second activity includes the promotion of the event. The third activity describes the time plan of the
event. The fourth and fifth activities refer to technical resources that are necessary during the
hackathon. Finally, the sixth activity includes the preparation of networking facilities and small
breakout conference rooms. Komssi et al. (2016) presented a model which contains three activities
to organize a hackathon and the last activity is not included in the previous model. In the first
activity, organizers invite participants to register to the hackathon and describe their entrepreneurial
ideas. The second activity refers to resources that are necessary during the hackathon. The last
activity includes post-hackathon events where participants have to find funders to expand their
ideas and develop innovative products or services. In this view, Alba et al. (2016) presented a
model which is similar with the previous one. However, he highlights to the definition of goals and
objectives of the hackathon in the first activity. The second activity refers to marketing campaign to
promote the event. The third activity includes processes regarding to the execution of the
hackathon and the fourth activity contains post-hackathon events for participants.
The prototypes that are created during competitions remain the property of the developers. They
have the chance to offer them to citizens or potential customers once the event is finished. For
example, Hielkema & Hongisto (2013) mentioned that in Helsinki, there are sales channels for
mobile platforms and online markets (e.g. iTunes and Ovi Store) which support the developers of
mobile platforms to sell their applications without huge costs in distribution and permit practically
unlimited upscaling of the utilization of digital services. In particular, Juell-Skielse et al. (2014)
implemented a survey of attendees of an open data hackathon, and they highlighted that,
notwithstanding the fact that over 80% of participants wanted to expand their applications further,
just 33% had accomplished the development after the event. This could be disclosed because of the
restricted help to participants by organizers after the competition. Lee et al. (2015) asserted that
when organizers of open data hackathons are informed about participants’ motivations, they could
include investors and venture capitalists among the jury committee members. Besides, they could
host contests and closing ceremonies that elaborate on potential funders. In this manner,
participants will have numerous possibilities to broaden their prototypes because they can present
them in real-time, discuss their attributes and get sponsorship.
2.2 Individual motivations and objectives
The current motivations for attendees who engage in innovation competitions are the integrity of
the judgment method, collaboration, training, and new knowledge (Rosell et al., 2014). Also,
factors that inspire attendees to participate in innovation competitions and convince them to pursue
ideas that require high market technical uncertainties may be fun, intellectual challenge, enjoyment,

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
status and reputation, professional and personal identification, empowerment, learning and skills
growth, funding, extrinsic reciprocity, user need, signaling and career opportunities (Adamczyk et
al., 2012; Immonen et al., 2014a; b; Komssi et al., 2016).
Nevertheless, individuals who engage in open data hackathons or innovation competitions are
faced with several difficulties that incommode the utilization of open data. These difficulties are
connected to the lack of technical readiness to use data sources due to complex data formats or
interfaces, ambiguous authorization of open data, technological barriers to data publishing
platforms, lack of local data and utility of open data, the willingness of users, application
developers and companies to take advantage of open data opportunities to use data and create
digital applications. According to Jaakkola et al. (2014) and Kitsios & Kamariotou (2019b), other
difficulties include legal problems, like data that is not ceremonially opened by the owner’s
decision, the lack of good data sources for application purposes, the lack of data quality and the
lack of accessibility of local data sources for application development. To use open data, literacy,
experience of users, citizens and companies, and government maintenance are required (Pope &
Greene, 2003). Moreover, Juell-Skielse et al. (2014) point out that the most critical obstacles facing
organizers and participants in hackathons are insufficient time or funds, the lack of promotional
integrity, the lack of external support, the lack of data, the difficulty of licensing API’s and other
services, the lack of partner collaboration for technical development, the lack of technical expertise
and innovation experience, barriers to current service-dependent platforms, the high market
competition and challenges in identifying qualified colleagues.
To conclude, many models have been suggested and include several activities to organize a
hackathon or an innovation contest. There are differences among models. For example, the
definition of goals can be a significant process because participants will be informed about the
purpose of each event. Furthermore, post-hackathon events are useful for participants to find
funding and expand their ideas. Support provided by the organizers of these events is important and
help participants develop a network in order to face challenges and barriers and develop innovative
products or services. Many events have been implemented in several cities to enhance innovation
and entrepreneurship. During these events developers have the opportunity to gain prizes to
develop their platforms. However, these events are only good in locating the best solutions and
providing initial support for promising startups. Organizers of hackathons do not provide a
sustainable way to developers to expand their concepts and launch their platforms into the market
on a long-term basis. However, existing studies did not discuss the perspectives of multiple
stakeholders who participate in these events to understand the co-ordination between them and to
improve the execution of open data hackathons and innovation competitions. Therefore, in this
paper our analysis is based on case studies of six hackathons and innovation contests, including
different types of events. Multiple stakeholders who have participated in these events provided
their experience about the main challenges, obstacles and barriers in organizing these events to
increase the level of their success.
3. Methodology
A case study is an approach that aims to present an understanding of the dynamics based on a
single setting. This approach involves either single or multiple cases and combines either
qualitative or quantitative data collection methods. This approach has been implemented because

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
little is known about the design strategies implemented in hackathons or innovation competitions
(Eisenhardt, 1989; Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007; Lee, 1989).
In this paper, the case study approach aimed at selecting cases that vary from context to context
includes groups that serve various roles in Thessaloniki’s hackathons and can evaluate the
execution process within each hackathon and how design choices impact their performance.
Interviews were conducted with the actors participated in hackathons and innovation competitions
held in Thessaloniki. The standard duration of each interview was 53min with a scope of 45–
60min. The interview protocol is presented in Appendix. Participants in hackathons were chosen
because digital contests are events where individuals create teams to cooperate and develop digital
services and platforms for the public (Ayele et al., 2015). Therefore, these actors can give data
concerning collaboration between them and create platforms and digital services using open data
(Soltani et al., 2014; Walsham 2006). Figure 1 presents the actors who participated in these events
and summarizes the main activities of each one.
Data providers are either organizations that provide data “for free” without any limitations or with
some licenses. Organizations that distribute data “for free” are the local government or other public
entities that have a vast amount of data but no ability or resources to use it to develop services.
These organizations distribute data to improve the national economy, involving businesses and
citizens in exploiting data. Data already processed can be bought directly from data providers when
service providers cannot perform the data procession task by themselves. Therefore, to provide
services, providers have to recognize customers’ needs, produce data from input (data) to a
particular context or domain and represent the produced data in a usable way.
Service providers do not essentially offer a complete service for end-users. They can provide them
with a part of a service chain, though. Infrastructure and tool providers provide other participants in
hackathons with the necessary tools, support them and receive revenues from the use of services
and applications. Application developers collaborate with the participants of hackathons to create
innovative applications out of open data usage. At the same time, by using applications and
services developed based on open data, users consume them. In addition, ICT experts, companies
and mentors should participate in innovation contests to help developers expand their concepts into
platforms or services which meet citizens’ needs and gain revenues from them. Thus, end-users can
be classified as consumers, citizens or enterprise users.

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
Figure 1. Actors participated in open data hackathons
The key themes of interviews that are presented in the next section refer to the description of each
event, the role of each stakeholder, the design strategy of each event and the challenges that
organizers and participants face. Figure 2 presents the main themes of the analysis.

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
Figure 2. The main themes of analysis
4. Results
The events examined were “Hackathess”, “Apps4Thessaloniki” and, “Apps4thessaloniki tourism
edition”, all coordinated by the Municipality of Thessaloniki in collaboration with the Greek Open
Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) and the Urban and Regional Innovation Research unit. The
“Afixis Hackathon” organized by the NGO Afixis was also analyzed. Finally, two hackathons were
held by universities in Thessaloniki; “Let's have a Hackathon!” was coordinated by the Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki, and the University of Macedonia organized “Datathon 2018”. In each
event, 11-25 teams containing 2-4 developers/students took part and created their projects. Table 1
presents the design strategy for each hackathon.
Hackathon
Organizers
Design strategy
Organizers’ goals
Participants’ goals
Hackathess
Municipality
of
Thessaloniki
Organizers built a forum for
registering citizens and
submitting their ideas that
could motivate developers to
create new applications
Prizes for winners
Mentors’ participation:
Satisfactory communication
with participants
Juries: professionals,
scholars, potential customers,
mentors, investors, senior
managers of local companies
The creation of new
applications based on open
data in order to enhance the
life of citizens
Win prizes
Seek an opportunity
for project
continuation
Main themes of
analysis
Description
of events
The role of
each
stakeholder
Challenges
The design
strategy of
each event

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
and members of the
Municipality of Thessaloniki
Developers had to
use open data published by
the local community and
develop applications based
on submitted citizens’ ideas
Apps4
Thessaloniki
Municipality
of
Thessaloniki
Organizers built a forum for
registering citizens and
submitting their ideas which
could inspire teams to
develop new applications
Prizes for winners
Mentors’ participation:
Satisfactory communication
with participants
Juries: professionals,
scholars, potential customers,
mentors, investors, senior
managers of local companies
and members of the
Municipality of Thessaloniki
Developers had to
use open data published by
the local community and
develop applications based
on submitted citizens’ ideas
The development of web and
mobile applications that
enhance many functions of the
Municipality and the city
Win prizes
Seek an opportunity
for project
continuation
Apps4
thessaloniki
tourism edition
Municipality
of
Thessaloniki
Participants had to create an
application that would serve
the contest’s intent
Prizes for winners
Mentors’ participation:
Satisfactory communication
with participants
Juries: professionals,
scholars, potential customers,
mentors, investors, senior
managers of local companies
and members of the
Municipality of Thessaloniki
Developers had to
use open data published by
the local community
New prospects for tourists
Tourists’ new encounters
Incentives for tourists
Win prizes
Seek an opportunity
for project
continuation
The competition
offered the chance
for winners to
compete in a contest
for startups at Tel
Aviv
Afixis Hackathon
Afxis
Participants had to create an
application that would serve
the contest’s intent
Small venture capital
Mentors in place
Juries: academics, companies
and professionals
Creation of innovative
educational programs for
students
Creativity and
innovation
Let's have a
Aristotle
Participants had to create an
Development of digital
Learning

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
Hackathon!
University of
Thessaloniki
application that would serve
the contest’s intent
Voucher
Certifications
Mentors in place
Juries: academics, companies
and professionals
capabilities
Having fun
Datathon 2018
University of
Macedonia
Participants had to create an
application that would serve
the contest’s intent
Certifications
Mentors’ participation:
Acceptable interaction with
attendees
Juries: academics
Developers had to
use open data
Generation of ideas and
creation of applications for
improving everyday struggles
Learning
Creativity and
innovation
Having fun
Table 1. Design strategy
According to the data provider, the portal of the municipality is used by data providers as a channel
of communication to make data available. Although this is a common solution, it should be
improved because the portal where the data is published is not clear. In addition, the service
provider uses the OKFN portal to publish data. Application developers use the Google store, the
App Store or many European platforms to launch their applications. Developers highlight that the
development of new websites is required to provide datasets and tools which will be useful for
them:
“The portal of the municipality is used by data providers as a channel of communication to make
data available. However, the portal should be improved because data is not updated. We use the
Google store, the App Store or many European platforms to launch our applications. New
platforms should be created to launch our applications”.
Data is published in the following formats: .doc, .xls, .pdf and .jpeg. Data providers aim to increase
data quality and update it. However, the format of published data is static. Service providers
develop tools to share data among the participants of hackathons. The technical characteristics of
data are not a barrier to increase entrepreneurial activities. The most significant obstacle is the lack
of education for users about the use of data, as a service provider states:
“We collaborate with academic institutions, research institutes and other public organizations to
provide data However, many users are not knowledgeable of the value of open data. They ignore
its significance for entrepreneurship and innovation. Educational programs should be developed to
learn about the how to use and analyze open data to create innovative platforms”.
Application developers highlighted that they use open data to develop platforms, but they do not
have significant value because data is not updated. In addition, they indicated that they should have
access to more data, and their format could be improved, as the following developer states:

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
“We use open data to develop our applications but data the format of published data is static. Data
is not updated. We are not informed of citizens’ requirements to develop innovative solutions for
them and improve the quality of their lives”.
The organizers of these competitions concluded that the duration of these competitions is 1-3 days.
The organizers are responsible for organizing the competition (e.g. scheduling, physical venue,
technical resources, and logistics). Then, participants create their applications, and the members of
the jury committee review them. Ultimately, to pick the most revolutionary prototype, the crucial
part of each event finishes with a final pitch in front of the jury committee members. The most
innovative application should be further expanded to become a viable product for potential
customers:
“We are responsible for organizing the event. Developers build their teams and create their
applications. Then, the members of the jury committee evaluate them. The developed applications
are not a viable product, but a prototype that only requires a minimum collection of main features
and must offer value to its prospective customers and enables acceptance assessments. Mentors,
businesses, startups, consultants, and academic institutions should participate in hackathons to
support developers to expand their applications and provide funding to them to launch their
services into the market”.
Organizers mentioned that there are several variations between hackathons in the planning process.
Hackathess and Apps4 Thessaloniki were civic and socially-driven. The Apps4 Thessaloniki
tourism edition was a single-application hackathon. However, the last event was an innovation-jam
hackathon. The developers used open data supplied by the local community to create solutions
focused on this field. The organizers defined concept of each contest, and it was conveyed via the
event website to participants. The participants, therefore, had in mind the perfect solution.
Developers have concluded their enrollment for each hackathon or innovation competition, and
then they built their teams in order to cooperate and create digital platforms. Developers with
different skills and experiences cooperate, create a team and compete with other teams to generate
new ideas, create prototypes and develop new solutions.
The prototype is based on the needs of users and provides benefits to them, but, it also considers its
commercial dimensions. Various abilities and competencies are also essential and crucial to
participating in hackathons, internally or externally, for open-minded and hands-on individuals to
create digital platforms. The developed applications are not a viable product, but a prototype that
only requires a minimum collection of main features and must offer value to its prospective
customers and enables acceptance assessments. For developers, it is a significant challenge to build
a team that can cooperate reasonably in just a limited period to produce valuable outcomes.
As far as the winners’ prizes were concerned, organizers highlighted that all competitions had a
form of award for the winning team that was not the same in all events. In hackathons that the
Municipality of Thessaloniki has organized, the central part of each hackathon ends with a final
pitch in front of a jury committee to select the most innovative prototypes, which should be further
developed to become a viable product for customers. In each jury committee experts, academics,
potential customers, mentors, investors, senior managers of local companies and members of the
Municipality of Thessaloniki participated. In addition, a wider audience, including other colleagues

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
and test customers, can be invited and involved in the iterative approach at the beginning and the
decision-making process at the end. In the Afixis Hackathon, winners have accumulated a modest
investment capital to broaden and monetize their applications.
Winners of hackathons organized by Greek Universities, on the other hand, did not receive
monetary compensation. A reason may be that the developers did not create final solutions but
rather prototypes. In these instances, it is more challenging for winners to broaden their
applications and launch them into the market. Beginning with a design or prototype means further
software development tasks may be required to create a solution with a minimal collection of
functionalities and to deliver it to customers. One winner participated in a hackathon organized by
a Greek University stated:
“We did not receive monetary compensation. We cannot expand our prototype to final solution
without funding. We need more resources. Collaboration with consultants and support from non-
government organizations are also required”.
Another reason may be that developers cannot develop entrepreneurial activities because they do
not have the appropriate tools. Many hackathons have been implemented in the city, but there is a
lack of entrepreneurial opportunities. The developers who have been involved in hackathons have
developed business models for their services or platforms, but they are not commercial. There is a
need to boost entrepreneurship through hackathons, but the efforts which have been implemented
are limited.
Many participants indicated that collaboration among the municipality, research institutes,
academic institutions, laboratories and organization of the private sector is necessary to provide
more data to developers and enhance the entrepreneurial opportunities for their platforms. Data
providers collaborate with academic institutions, research institutes and other public organizations
to publish data and distribute it to developers to develop their platforms. Furthermore, new
stakeholders can be involved in hackathons, such as new startups, infrastructure providers and
intermediaries (consultants for application developers and startups). These new stakeholders can
increase the entrepreneurial activities of developers. Businesses and intermediaries should be
engaged in innovation competitions because they could support new platforms or digital services to
be launched, and developers could start new startups. Another significant stakeholder of the open
data ecosystem is the non-government sector. This sector provides consultative and administrative
services to citizens, developers, government agencies as well as other non-governmental
organizations and offers many funding options for the development of platforms or digital services
based on open data for the local and national economy. The social value of open data aims to help
developers create startups and enhance networking and engagement of citizens in related decision-
making processes.
The value of products based on open data has been increased and competitions support the
development of these products or services that do not compete against a business's products. Thus,
open data is considered as an effective way to increase competitiveness. Therefore, companies’
engagement helps developers generate new ideas, visualize products and provide a new kind of
essential function and new data-based content. Although, these contests were successful and new
applications were created, an important finding is that organizers did not take feedback form

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
participants to improve future events. Furthermore, the organizing committee did not support the
winners in trying to expand their applications and create startups. They should enlist mentors to
assist participants in obtaining funding and launching their applications to the market.
5. Discussion and research propositions
Hackathons are efficiently used as a modern means of coordinating product innovation concerning
new market demands and technological developments thanks to their capacity to develop
prototypes and determine their viability within a minimal timeline. Organizing a hackathon,
nevertheless, requires cautious strategic preparation and acknowledgement of the objectives set for
themselves and participants. Thessaloniki’s attempts to organize open data hackathons have built
several obstacles to the effectiveness of handling them. The key barriers include the alignment of
mechanisms. Besides, rather than having developed applications, there are no powerful diffusion
channels. Furthermore, data is not accessible via open standards or at no costs, and as a result,
software applications restrict access. Another significant issue is that data is not disclosed in its
initial form, is not modified, and is not presented in an accessible format. Therefore, users are
unable to verify the quality and usefulness of the data. A significant challenge, considering the
technological barriers, is that many companies are not prepared to open data, and hackathon
attendees can also create applications.
In the existing literature, Immonen et al. (2014a) highlighted that although the developers of
applications could greatly benefit from the business opportunities of open data, the lack of value
networks and business models has been highlighted as the significant challenge to data utilization
in services and applications. It is because of the weakness of developers to use data to develop new
businesses as well as of the lack of technical readiness in terms of using data sources related to
complex data formats or interfaces that the mentioned challenges and problems usually stem from
(Jaakola et al., 2014). Furthermore, Immonen et al. (2014b) added that along with these issues, the
difficulty of generating relevant data for application purposes, the insufficient access to regional
data sources to create applications or local services, the unclear licensing of open data, legal issues,
technical limitations regarding data publishing platforms, the guarantee of data quality and
reliability, and finally the lack of availability and usefulness of local data could be attributed.
These challenges are similar with existing research – see for instance Jaakkola et al. (2014), Juell-
Skielse et al. (2014), Kitsios & Kamariotou (2019b) and Pope & Greene (2003) who argue that the
most critical obstacles facing organizers and participants in hackathons are the lack of external
support, the lack of partner collaboration for technical development, and the lack of technical
expertise and innovation experience. They also highlight other difficulties such as legal problems,
like data that is not ceremonially opened by the owner’s decision, the lack of good data sources for
application purposes, the lack of data quality, the lack of accessibility of local data sources for
application development, insufficient time or funds, the lack of promotional integrity, and the lack
of data.
5.1 Research propositions
A number of research propositions are developed based on the literature review and the analysis of
the interviews to guide future research concerning design strategies that contribute to the successful
execution of open data hackathons and innovation competitions.

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
Proposition 1. It is required for businesses, policymakers, citizens, practitioners and developers to
create strong collaboration to publish and reuse data sets because they aim to gain digital services,
platforms and information from cooperative ventures.
Developers play, in this context, a significant role among all the actors in the open data ecosystem.
They have enthusiasm, and non-government sectors or businesses often support them to develop
digital platforms and services based on open data. For companies, this participation provides a
significant chance to increase collaboration among public sector organizations, businesses and local
governments to gain benefits from e-commerce ventures and associated collaboration networks.
Open data platforms and services may aim to foster open and cooperative governance. On the
contary, non-government organizations may aim to create new channels of public relations with
citizens and the government, and they have the opportunity to use data sets and make inquiries and
assessments. Thus, the evolution of open data platforms and services can be considered as an
efficient tool to increase networking between organizations of both the public and private sectors.
Proposition 2. Organizers should fully realize the knowledge and insight creation potential of
hackathon execution, develop explicit knowledge management mechanisms, and evolve their
ability to exploit this potential within the different phases of hackathons entirely.
Organizers should realize the full potential of digital technologies in tracking stakeholders’ needs
and feedback instantly. In this connection, it has become fundamental for organizers to develop a
transparent open data-driven culture, strong corporate open data-driven values, and a far-reaching,
long-term open data-driven strategic orientation.
Proposition 3. There is not a single way of how to organize a hackathon or an innovation contest,
but the whole set-up must be defined specifically for the needs of each public institution and should
even be adapted for each specific use case.
The results of this paper share practical experience with academics and researchers by providing
new insights regarding to the preparation, the implementation and the evaluation of contests. The
outcomes imply a more robust impact which enables collaboration and commitment between the
actors in the city’s ecosystem towards reaching the goal of improving their quality of life. The
findings expand the knowledge of how innovation contests are managed. Furthermore, they help
researchers plan digital contests that meet the organizers’ objectives and help participants increase
their entrepreneurial activity. Hosting hackathons is an excellent way for empowering and
engaging citizens to be aware of how their active involvement can positively improve the quality of
life in their cities by developing new applications. As more open data hackathons are hosted in
Thessaloniki and used as drivers of innovation, organizers need to collaborate with universities,
governments, application users and other actors of the city’s ecosystem.
5.2 Theoretical contributions and implications
This paper makes original contributions in at least two different directions. First, our analysis
contributes to overcoming the diversity of design strategies existing among the different paradigms
of open data hackathons. Based on our findings, we claim that a critical design strategy is the
recognition of the intent of each competition since it allows participants to provide a reference to
create their applications. This design strategy may impact others, so that the consistent

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
understanding and communication of each competition’s intent can be a win-win scenario for both
organizers and attendees. Previous researchers concluded to similar findings (Alba et al., 2016;
Kitsios & Kamariotou, 2019a; Rosell et al., 2014). They mentioned that it is necessary to define
specific objectives and plan a professional hosting of the competition and follow-up activities to
develop and launch a viable service for citizens.
Second, collaboration processes have to be managed by contemporarily harmonizing the needs and
practices of different actors (institutions, developers, companies, customers, public and government
actors, etc.). Collaboration with academic and research institutions and other government agencies
is vital for the publication of accessible data. In addition, companies and consultants should
participate in innovation competitions to inspire participants to develop their ideas and create
services that meet citizens’ needs and raise funds from them. Previous researchers highlighted that
these actors should participate in hackathons in order to help organizers in hackathons achieve their
objectives. Furthermore, the collaboration among these actors stimulates the development of
valuable open digital services by developers who participate in hackathons (Hielkema & Hongisto,
2013).
5.3 Implications for practice
The findings of this paper have managerial implications for the practical design and
implementation of hackathons by all the actors in open data ecosystems. First, dialogue and
cooperation involving high levels of awareness of all the collaborative actors are required.
Participants should have adequate sustainable skills and abilities to collaborate and develop
prototypes focused on each event’s intent. Technical expertise alone is not an adequate element that
contributes to a hackathon’s performance. To create an idea, extend it to an application, create a
prototype and release it to the market, each group needs to collaborate effectively and develop a
range of skills. In this connection, our findings suggest, the presence of mentors during the
hackathon to facilitate participants developing their applications is another crucial design strategy
that integrates with the preceding one. Mentors could be scholars, professionals, experts or
representatives of the public sector.
Second, and closely related to the above, the collaboration between academic institutions, research
institutions and public community is expected to disclose accessible data and to assist participants
in the creation of their applications. Kitsios & Kamariotou (2019a) mentioned that winners should
be encouraged by both mentors and jury committee members to broaden their platforms and launch
them into the market after the contest. Awards, on the other hand, are not a critical design strategy
that significantly influences a competition’s success. To launch applications into the market,
participants require investment funds because hackathon prizes are not adequate.
Third, the organizers of hackathons may be interested in this article because they could be
knowledgeable of the design strategies that influence the successful execution and performance of
these competitions. Practitioners focused on developing these design strategies will solve
organizational obstacles and accelerate creativity in competitions. In addition, the findings of this
article share the practical experience of providing scholars and researchers with valuable
perspectives on the planning, execution and evaluation of competitions. There is no one way to
figure out how to host a hackathon or an innovation competition. Still, the entire schedule must be

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
explicitly specified for the needs of each public organization and should even be adapted for each
specific use case, as also stated by Pe-Than et al. (2018). Furthermore, Juell-Skielse et al. (2014)
noticed that despite the fact that the majority of the participants planned to expand their
applications further, only one third had achieved the development, after the contest because the
support by organizers was limited. This challenge could be solved if organizers in open data
hackathons were informed of developers’ motivations, and involve entrepreneurs and venture
capitalists as juries. Thus, developers could discuss about their applications, present them in real-
time and get funding when potential funders are engaged in closing ceremonies of digital contests.
Fourth, companies should considering that data privacy and security issues strongly affect the
propensity of customers and other stakeholders to be engaged within innovation processes,
Companies should design, adopt and deliver open data communication and management policies
aimed at developing open data-based product architectures characterized by high levels of
modularity, flexibility, scalability, and integrability, and therefore suitable for increasing the
amount of open data directly generated from the product and service consumption spaces.
Fifth, the results of this paper support practitioners who aim to transform their business models to
provide services that will increase their competitive advantage. These companies aim to lead the
way by innovating new IT-enabled service models, such as developing software as a service for
their customers. Open data is central to delivering of these services through these new business
models, which have implications for the structure and culture of firms, and their practices.
Practitioners can be knowledgeable of how to provide and produce services using open data.
5.4 Limitations and Future Research Direction
The principal limitation of this paper is that it provides an overview of six hackathons conducted in
Thessaloniki. It could thus be the starting point for future studies investigating the participants’ or
organizers’ experiences that will assist practitioners in analyzing how each one could be
implemented because hackathons vary in intent, planning, implementation and follow-up activities.
In addition, related cases from other cities or countries may be investigated to construct a
comprehensive development process for hosting hackathons and generalize the results of this
article. Future researchers may also evaluate the performance of each hackathon during both the
contest and even after the event. There are no results in the current literature concerning the
satisfaction of organizers and attendees at the end of the competition. The assessment of
participants’ or organizers’ satisfaction could assist decision makers in determining and taking
specific actions to maximize the strong and weak points of the contests. Identifying the criteria that
can evaluate a hackathon’s success is critical. This could allow organizers to prepare and execute
each competition in a strategic way more efficiently.
The fact that many organizations are not willing to use open data may be the result of a variety of
factors, such as the fact that the data may negatively influences specific social groups, that there are
no copyrights concerning the reuse of data that the legal framework offers from country to country
and that the cost of data can be high. To increase users’, citizens’ and businesses’ experience of
using open data, all these entities should be educated. Also, education is necessary for data users to
expand the capabilities of statistical techniques which are used for the collection, analysis and
visualization of data. But these efforts should be supported by governments. Future research must

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
identify the kinds of datasets that can attract developer interest and mitigate conflicts in the value
network, especially between the data publisher and the service provider.
We hope this study will stimulate future research to deepen the potential for designing strategies to
improve the implementation of hackathons. We also believe that an in-depth analysis could be a
great help in further clarifying the profound significance and potential of the design strategies of
our analysis, as well as their empirically direct and indirect mutual relationships.
6. Conclusion
The most significant finding of the analysis concludes that the active involvement of businesses
and organizations of the non-government sector and the collaboration among companies and
developers lead to the evolution of new channels of communication where an emerging field of
open data intermediaries is emerging, radically altering the conventional channels of government
change in an inherently digital environment. To achieve this goal, entities from the public and
private sectors must collaborate, primarily by publishing official government data sets, providing
funding, educating citizens to participate in related open data-driven activities, sharing knowledge
and technical tools, and creating networking opportunities that will aid in the launch of more open
data-driven platforms, services, and startups in the city.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships
that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.
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Appendix: Interview protocol

This is the pre-print version. The final version is available at: Kitsios, F. and Kamariotou, M.
(2022). Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Transformation through Open Data
Hackathons: Design Strategies for successful start-up settings, International Journal of
Information Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102472 (In press) [see:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000032]
Six case studies of open data hackathons and digital innovation competitions held between 2014
and 2018 in Thessaloniki have been analyzed to understand the co-ordination between the multiple
stakeholders of these events and improve the execution of open data hackathons and innovation
competitions. Primary and secondary data was gathered from the sites of these contests and held 13
semi-structured interviews and conversations with participants of the hosted open data hackathons
(service suppliers, application developers, infrastructure and tool suppliers and data suppliers). The
interviewees were selected from open data hackathons. They were selected based on their
knowledge of the open data value network in which they act (Pe-Than et al., 2018). The questions
were based on previous surveys (Frey & Luks, 2016; Immonen et al., 2014a; b; Komssi et al.,
2016; Pe-Than et al., 2018; Rosell et al., 2014) and were focused on the following issues: What are
the characteristics of open data and applications? Is there a formal process for publishing open data
from organizations / companies? Is there any legal framework for the entities in the open data
ecosystem? Which are the tools for using open data? How important is open data for the increase in
the competitive advantage of a company or an organization? How do entities co-operate to create
competitive advantage? What are the cost and revenue structure of open data applications for each
entity? What are the main activities for organizers? What are the organizers’ goals? What are the
participants’ goals? How do developers create applications? What are the prices? Who participates
in the jury committee?
Interviews allow for comprehension of these events and activities taking place with specific
environments. The questions were linked to objectives and design choices that influence the
performance of hackathons or digital innovation competitions based on the current literature
(Komssi et al., 2016; Rosell et al., 2014). These design strategies are mentioned to specific problem
identification, prizes of winners, knowledge and skills of team members, involvement of mentors in
the competition, level of support by mentors for developers to launch their platforms into the
market, expertise and experience of members of the jury and the entry criteria of the contest.