Wachawi by LSL Digital at the Krakathon 2018

Ish Sookun -

The term Krakathon derives from hackathon (itself being a marathon of computer programming & usually mathematical challenges) and the Kraken (signifying the most dangerous sea creature). Participants are called pirates and they are given a set of challenges to solve in order to score points. The teams having the highest scores are seen as the pirates sailing closest to the Kraken :-) thus gaining reputation as brave & tough pirates.

Teams are made of up to a maximum of six participants. The competition runs for 24-hours. I participated in this year’s Krakathon with my colleagues thanks to a corporate sponsorship by LSL Digital. Our team name was Wachawi which means “sorcerer” or “wizard” in Swahili.

This year twenty teams from different companies and universities participated. Some companies even had more than one team representing them, e.g the Mauritius Commercial Bank having two teams and Spoon Consulting having three teams.

We composed a team of six that included mostly new recruits and one intern:

  • Jules Giovanni
  • Jeshta Bhoyedhur
  • Kushul Soomaree
  • Chittesh Sham
  • Neil Baichoo
  • Ish Sookun (Captain)
A visit at the photo-booth before the competition starts!

The competition was tough and yet very exciting.

At around 20h00 on Saturday 20 October, when the scoreboard was first updated, our team was positioned second, with Extension Interactive leading and Rubiks (Spoon Consulting) at the third place. From midnight till 5 mins before the competition ends we lead the first place. But then, at the last five minutes Rubiks (Spoon Consulting) got ahead of us with 200 points more. We scored 10935 points. The final scoreboard looked like this:

  • Rubiks (Spoon Consulting) 11185
  • Wachawi by LSL Digital 10935
  • Extension Interactive 9510
  • Teletubbies 9235
  • Code Busters (Spoon Consulting) 8885
  • Cyber Raiders (MCB) 8385
  • Dodo SQL (OceanDBA) 8210
  • Java.Ayo (MCB) 8175
  • Avengers (MSCC) 8035
  • Oceanus (SDWORX) 6935
  • Exception Handlers (DSO Group) 6860
  • Trial & Error (Spoon Consulting) 6635
  • Savvy Bots 6500
  • ALU 3 (ALC) 6210
  • Maureviens (Maureva) 6210
  • Now You See Us (Aztek) 6010
  • Business & Decision 5810
  • ALU 2 (ALC) 4060
  • ALU 1 (ALC) 3160
  • Stapam (Stella Telecom) 1145

On Sunday at 14h00, we were tired, sleepless, but overall happy with the team spirit, collaboration and enthusiasm to spend 24-hours solving the craziest problems.

Right after we we won 2nd place

Yes, after the announcement we were disappointed that Rubiks got ahead of us at the last five minutes. That could be clearly seen on our faces. Disappointed but not defeated. Team Wachawi will be back next year!