Rewarding talent and exploring generative AI at Cudathon

I’d like to recognize the participants of our recent Cudathon competition. We had several teams participating, and each team presented remarkable outcomes.

What is Cudathon?

Barracuda conducts internal hackathons to give our employees the opportunity to develop and present their best creative ideas. Hackathons have been around for decades, originally starting as coding collaborations (OpenBSD) or competitions (JavaOne) to produce a predefined outcome. We have successfully used hackathons in the past to build relationships and identify potential recruits. Internal hackathons have produced some very successful feature solutions and led to career advancement and new opportunities for the participants. We lovingly call these internal events ‘Cudathons.’ For more background on these, see this blog Q&A with CEO Hatem Naguib here.

The criteria for the 2023 Cudathon were very straightforward. Unlike our old ‘battle of the bots’ challenges, participants were tasked with developing a generative AI solution that met certain Barracuda requirements. Just like a traditional hackathon, participants had 48 hours to develop this solution. There was some advance notice on the event requirements, but not enough to extend the competition beyond this 48-hour window.

The event

Nine teams competed for cash prizes, swag, and resources that will help them fully develop their Cudathon projects into reality. I wish we could have given prizes for the team names:

• Need More Data
• First AI.d
• The Dabblers
• Dr. Jenkins and Mr. AI-yde
• The Outliers
• Organic Intelligence
• The Red Cudas
• Algorithm Avengers
• XDR Purple Team

The six-member judging panel represented multiple departments, including customer success, engineering, human resources, and more. Together they evaluated the projects against the criteria and determined the three winners. The Outliers and Algorithm Avengers tied for second place, and The Red Cudas took the grand prize. I’m excited to see what’s next for these competitors and their projects.  

The benefits

Every competitor wants to take first place, but the Cudathon isn’t just about the prize. Competitions like this give our employees a safe space to collaborate and create a solution that they might see in production someday. Unlike an idea or ‘suggestion box’ submission process, the Cudathon requires teams to design, create, and communicate their project to a panel of judges who are experts in different areas of business.

A Cudathon does not just test development skills. Team members must find consensus on ideas, demonstrate leadership in their roles, and contribute as team members in other areas. The team then presents their work to a panel that is like a group of C-level stakeholders. The ideas and skills that come out of a Cudathon are greater than those that go in.

The topic

2023 was a year of discovering the promise of generative AI. All industries found a place for this technology, at least in concept, and Gartner predicts that more than 80% of enterprises will have used generative AI by 2026. Those of us in cybersecurity are especially excited about the potential, and that excitement was definitely on display during our Cudathon.