Teams of shipbuilders spent part of last week working to come up with innovative ideas during a Dogfish Labs hackathon, sponsored by Newport News Shipbuilding’s Business Transformation & Technology (BT&T) Division.

During the hackathon – which focused on the premise of making IT at NNS a profit-generating enterprise – teams developed ideas and pitched them to a panel of judges.

“It was an opportunity for everyone to really flex their creative muscles and try to come up with an idea that can help the business, provide innovation and really bring something new to the shipyard,” said Emily Kodl (E59), part of the Dogfish Labs team that worked for months to make the event a reality.

Hackathons are traditional in the IT world and are typically held at colleges, with participants working around the clock for a set amount of time – usually 24 hours. Since hosting a traditional nonstop hackathon at NNS wasn’t feasible, the event was spread out over three days.

“We still wanted to give them that much time to really sink into an idea and come up with some sort of prototype that they could demo,” Kodl said. Teams started working Wednesday morning and presented their ideas to the panel of judges Friday afternoon. Earlier in the day, NNS President Jennifer Boykin stopped by to meet with participants.

Among the participants was a team of E70 shipbuilders that included Charles Bonsu, Quentin Holmes, Daniel Diggs and Elija Bullock. All are relatively new to NNS, with shipyard tenure in the group ranging from three weeks to about a year.

“I thought it would be a good teambuilding experience and a way to meet and network with other people. It’s been fun and engaging,” Bonsu said. “I’ve learned and used software I had never touched before so it’s a good learning experience.”

Atiya Jordan-Stellmacher (T53), who was part of a different team, said she wanted to participate in the hackathon because it was an opportunity to try something different.

“It’s been a collaborative experience, and it was a great opportunity to work with other people, learn and have fun,” she said.

The team of Becky Thompson, Bill Spracklin, Ryan Foster and Zachary Johnson developed the winning idea. In second place was the team of Suresh Palaniswami, Nirmala Suresh, Darlene Dela Cruz Jordan and Evan R. Boone. Bonsu, Holmes, Diggs and Bullock came in third place.