“VALO’s premises served our needs even better than expected. The rooms were great places for the teams to solve their challenges. The concept of turning a hotel room into an office in a few minutes was simply wonderful.”
Dash Design organized a spectacular Hack in a Hotel event at VALO. Read the interview with Rami Ruotsalainen and Henrik Asklöf.
Dash Design was founded in 2017 as an Aaltoes project to bring together students from the arts, technology and business sciences, and has already been organizing hackathon events, i.e. problem-solving competitions, for six years. In these events, ambitious multidisciplinary student teams have solved the business challenges of partner companies using design thinking methods.
“This year, Dash split off into its organization, which we have worked on together with a core team of four people. Our most important resource, however, is the enthusiastic volunteers, who participated in organizing the event with a smile on their faces”, describes Rami Ruotsalainen, operations director of Dash Design.
At VALO, Dash Design organized a three-day spectacular event in mid-October, where approximately 300 people participated.
“We organized the Dash Hack 2022 event, the Design Thinking Hackathon, at VALO. Multidisciplinary four-person teams, made up of both Finnish and international top students, were involved in the event and were able to solve the interesting business challenges of our challenge partners. This year, our challenge partners were Kalmar, Vaisala, Fazer, ABB and VTT,” says Ruotsalainen.
Dash organized “Hack in a Hotel” for the first time in 2020, and Dash Design ended up at VALO based explicitly on the theme of previously organized events.
“The first events were not held at VALO, but in the spring of 2022, we decided to look around places. It didn’t take many visits before we decided on the next hotel.”
“2020 was depressing for the event industry, but we didn’t want to change our event to a virtual one, so we organized Dash Hack in the hotel for the first time. The concept allowed for organizing a safe live event during exceptional times. However, Hack in a Hotel turned out to be much more than just an exceptional solution, and this year’s event showed that VALO is as made for Dash Hack, and the cooperation will certainly continue in the future,” says Henrik Asklöf, leader of Dash and who participated in all three Hack in a Hotel-events.
It is choosing a hybrid hotel that also specializes in organizing events turned out to be the right solution.
“VALO suited our event like a cherry on top of the cake,” Ruotsalainen enthuses.
“VALO’s premises served our needs even better than expected. The rooms were great places for the teams to solve their challenges. The concept of turning a hotel room into an office in a few minutes was amazingly wonderful,” Asklöf sums up.
In addition to the spaces suitable for the event, VALO also received praise from the representatives of Dash Design for many other details.
“Delicious food, wonderful lounge areas, nice staff and flexible cooperation with VALO made our event very enjoyable for the organizers, participants and partners.”
Thanks to the arrangements that went well, next year’s Dash Hack will also be organized at VALO, according to Rami Ruotsalainen.
“We look forward to next year’s event, which will also be organized at VALO. I recommend [VALO]! Behind the wonderful (hybrid) hotel is an amazing team with whom it is a pleasure to cooperate. VALO’s base is also perfect for events.”
Images of the article: Roope Pöllänen & Jonna Eloranta
