Avanade’s regional Makeathon events showcase our culture of innovation, bringing employees together throughout the world to collaborate on challenges, broaden their perspectives and see innovation in action. Marco Santoro Soares was a part of the winning team at the Brazil Makeathon event, which was attended by 233 people from the region. In his own words, Marco shared his Makeathon experience and why the event is so valuable to him and to Avanade.

Q. What about the experience was valuable to you?
• Esta foi a segunda vez que participei. Foi uma experiência muito valiosa e cada um dos eventos tem algo em especial. Além do network que sempre criamos, podendo estar próximo de gestores e absorvendo idéias e conhecimento e integrando com pessoas de outras regiões e áreas da Avanade, também descobrimos nossa capacidade de criação de ótimas soluções em tão pouco tempo e a capacidade de discutir em alto nível, com nível de experiência variada. São soluções reais e aplicáveis, nada que seja fora da realidade.
• This was the second time that I've participated. It was a very valuable experience and each one of these events had something special. In addition to the professional network we always build, being close to managers and absorbing ideas and knowledge and integrating with people from other regions and Avanade departments, we also figure out our ability to create great solutions in such a short time and the ability to discuss at a high level, with people across career levels. We see real and applicable solutions, and that nothing that is out of reality.

Q. How do you think the event contributes to Avanade’s culture? 
• Eventos como este contribuem para continuar essa cultura própria muito forte que a Avanade tem, que eu gosto muito. Mas além disso, demonstrar que a Avanade realmente está engajada em criar coisas novas e que as pessoas relamente façam parte disso.
• Events like this contribute to keep this very strong culture that Avanade has, which I like very much. But in addition, this event demonstrates that Avanade is really engaged in creating new things and that people are really part of it.

Q. What did you learn?
• Aprendi que se houver vontade, inovar pode ser fácil.
  Muitas vezes pensamos em ótimas idéias, mas por falta de tempo ou vontade acabamos não investindo. Então não precisamos sempre de um evento para esse start, inovar pode estar no nosso dia a dia, só precisamos da vontade de investir nosso tempo.
• I learned that if there is willpower, innovating becomes easy.
  We often think of great ideas, but for lack of time or willpower, we end up not investing. So we don't always need an event for this “start,” innovating could be in our day to day, we just need the willpower to invest our time.

Q. What was your feeling during the event? And when presenting the pitch?
• Achei muito boa a primeira parte, vimos soluções geniais que estão sendo criadas pela Avanade dentro dos clientes. A vontade era poder participar do desenvolvimento de algumas delas.
  O Makeathon foi um pouco mais corrido este ano, então trabalhamos duro e viramos a noite para entregar o material para apresentar da solução. Sem isso com certeza não teriamos concluído nosso trabalho. A sensação era muito boa, porque todos os times estavam na mesma pegada.
  Como sabiamos que 5 minutos era um tempo curto para apresentar nossa solução, criamos um video para nos ajudar e utilizar muito bem este tempo. Ao final, com perguntas respondidas, senti que tinhamos conseguido alcançar nosso objetivo, ou seja, que as pessoas tivessem captado nossa idéia e sentido que a solução era realmente viável.
  Sempre há um nervosismo na hora da apresentação, mas ensaiamos algumas vezes para que nada saisse errado. Deu certo!
• I felt that the first part was very good — we saw some genial solutions being created by Avanade in the customers. I wanted to be able to participate in the development of some of them.
  Makeathon was a bit shorter this year, so we worked hard and didn’t get as much sleep to finish the material to present the solution. Without that drive, we certainly wouldn’t have completed our work. The feeling was very good, because all the teams were in the same vibration.
  As we knew that five minutes was a short time to present our solution, we created a video to help us and use this time very well. In the end, with questions answered, I felt that we had achieved our goal: That is, that people understood our idea and felt that the solution was really viable.
  There is always a nervousness in the presentation, but we practice several times so that nothing went wrong. It worked!

Q. If you could explain !nnovate in one paragraph, what would you write down?
• !nnovate é o momento de integração, incentivo, oportunidades e reconhecimento. A Avanade integra as pessoas, mostrando tudo de genial que tem sido criado nos clientes, como incentivo, e dando oportunidade para criar mais uma solução genial e, por fim, reconhecendo estas soluções.
• !nnovate is the moment of integration, incentive, opportunities and recognition.
  Avanade integrates people, showing everything of genius that has been created in the customers as an incentive, and gives the opportunity to create another great solution and, finally, recognizes these solutions.

Q. Final words:
• One word for the event:
➢ Formidável
➢ Terrific
• One word for the team:
➢ Confiança
➢ Confidence
• One word for the feeling you`ve had:
➢ Aprendizado
➢ Learning