When you hear “hackathon”, it most likely conjures up the image of a dark room with a bunch of computer wizards at rows of desks trying to “hack” at a problem. But this is only half true in the case of Otinga. It helps other businesses use this hackathon framework to drive rapid innovation and build a collaborative culture.

Innovation is more than a buzzword. It has become the key to moving forward and stagnating. When it comes to growing your business, the latter is deadly. No business can afford not to grow, and Otinga aims to solve this problem.

Founded in 2013 by Francois van der Merwe, Otinga is a proudly South African company that works with enterprise teams to move innovation from good idea to real-world delivery. This brand achieves this by running structured innovation challenges, hackathons and design thinking programmes that produce tangible outputs like validated concepts, prototypes and pilot-ready roadmaps.

Innovation is Problematic

A major mistake businesses of all sizes make is to aim for innovation without achieving results. Labelling everything as innovation becomes problematic.

“I believe this problem starts with not having the end in mind,” says Van der Merwe. “Too often, organisations pursue ‘innovation’ without a clear business case or value hypothesis. Before starting, you should be able to articulate: If we do X in this way, at this cost, we expect to see Y outcome. Without that clarity, almost anything can be labelled innovation.

“The second part is measurement. If you don’t define expected outcomes upfront and hold yourself accountable for tracking them, you can’t honestly determine whether innovation has occurred. Innovation without measurable impact is just activity.”

Passionate about enterprise-ready innovation in an era of AI and rapid disruption, Van der Merwe has built Otinga to expedite R&D within businesses and bypass the silos that trap ideas. The result: a pilot-ready roadmap in a single weekend.

One important point that Van der Merwe highlights here is that launching a product isn’t necessarily innovation.

“A launch is a milestone at best – a leading indicator. It does not, on its own, represent value realisation. The real focus should be on the outcomes tied to each milestone and the tangible return generated over the lifecycle of the initiative,” he advises. “Sometimes a launch is an experiment – and that’s valid – but then it must be treated deliberately as such, with clear learning objectives.”

He digs down to the root of what business owners need to understand. “Innovation is not simply creating something new; it’s the ability to measure its impact, extract learning, and apply those insights elsewhere in the organisation.

“Without that cycle of value measurement and learning, a launch is just an event – not innovation.

Emphasising Governance and Culture

Van der Merwe notes that the best innovation in the world is done with a risk and governance mindset from the outset. With this approach, these important factors don’t fall by the wayside, yet other types of barriers, such as internal red tape and continuous back and forth, are broken down.

“It’s about understanding how to engineer solutions within the parameters. That’s when you see real innovation. While breakthrough thinking sometimes requires navigating complexity and cutting through bureaucracy, the most sustainable and scalable innovation implementations I’ve seen – whether in AI, process optimisation, or new product development – almost always start with governance and risk embedded from day one,” he explains. “When governance is treated as an enabler rather than an obstacle, innovation becomes durable. When it’s ignored, you may move fast, but you won’t scale safely.”

For this reason, teams must understand that design thinking is a mindshift and internal processes aren’t challenges; they are part of the scope. This reasoning needs to become embedded in that organisational culture. It often also requires a cross-functional team.

“A cross-functional team can perform across multiple functions effectively,” Van der Merwe says.

But before a team performs cross-functionally, leaders need to assess a team’s ability to function in this way.

“One simple way to assess readiness is to introduce variability in input expectations; ask the team to deliver outside of their comfort zone and observe how they respond. But ultimately, you only know how ready you are for a fire if you’ve done fire drills.”

He explains that the same applies here. “You can conduct paper-based assessments, but the only real way to determine cross-functionality is to test it in practice. Run cross-functional challenges. Execute time-bound problem-solving exercises. Put the team under realistic delivery pressure. Testing cross-functionality is the most reliable way to assess it.”

This is another element that a business can assess through innovation sprints like the hackathons that Otinga helps facilitate.

Ideas Plus Execution Equals Innovation

According to Van der Merwe, high-performing organisations typically combine two complementary approaches.

“First, they cultivate a culture where ideation aligned to strategic business goals is actively encouraged and incentivised. This can take the form of suggestion platforms, awards, structured challenges, or internal campaigns. The key is that ideas must be aligned with business priorities.

“Second, and most critical, they execute. This is where mechanisms like hackathons or rapid execution sprints become powerful.”

He explains that a structured approach might involve:

• Soliciting ideas supported by lightweight business cases or value hypotheses
• Shortlisting based on strategic fit and potential value
• Hosting hackathons or focused sprints to rapidly test and build
• Measuring results and iterating

“In essence, they need to have a structured way of gathering ideas, and an equally structured way of executing on them. That combination of disciplined ideation and disciplined execution is how you extract real value from innovation,” he concludes.