For decades, the hackathon has occupied an insulated corner of tech folklore—a caffeine-fueled sprint reserved strictly for software architects, proprietary codebases, and venture-backed product sprints. Yet the true velocity of the format was never governed by syntax; it was powered by a rare, pressure-tested brand of human chemistry that legacy institutions routinely sterilize. When serial entrepreneur Galit Zamler first stepped into that room in 2013, she identified a profound cultural blind spot: the critical faculties cultivated inside those compressed environments—instinctive collaboration, rapid prototyping, and self-directed agency—were the exact capabilities missing from modern education. Where institutional gatekeepers saw a fringe exercise reserved for a technical elite, Zamler recognized an untapped architecture for democratized problem-solving.
More than one hundred experiential hackathons later, Zamler has systematically dismantled the myth that innovation belongs exclusively to programmers. Through Vickathon, she has mobilized classrooms, civic municipalities, and enterprise teams across international borders, proving that breakthrough thinking flourishes in non-traditional spaces. Her trajectory was forged without the safety net of early bureaucratic approval; when state officials dismissed her methodology as too niche for ordinary students, she bypassed the gatekeepers entirely and let empirical results rewrite the consensus. Below, Zamler reflects on the quiet leverage of outlasting institutional skepticism, navigating live operational crises with composure, and why sustainable leadership is measured not by how much you carry alone, but by the infrastructure of trust you build around you.
What inspired your vision to bring experiential innovation to education?
In 2013, I participated in a hackathon for adults, and I fell in love with the format. I loved the atmosphere, the connections between people, and the way teams worked together toward a shared goal. At the same time, I saw a gap: students had no access to this kind of experience. I believe hackathons give people something traditional education rarely does, a fast, practical way to build entrepreneurial skills.
I was already working with schools through Entrepreneurship for Kids, a program I founded in 2009, so I approached school principals with the idea of a student hackathon. In 2014, four schools from four different cities in Israel joined. The hackathon took place over three meetings, each hosted at a different school, and students developed ideas together with children they had never met before. Watching them, I knew this was what I wanted to build my work around.
How did early skepticism validate that you were ahead of your time?
In the early days, I presented my methodology and the Vickathon platform to a senior official at the Ministry of Education, because I was looking for support. He was part of the ministry's innovation department. He told me hackathons were only for excellent students and a very niche market. I told him I had already led hackathons with regular students and gave him examples, but he didn't want to hear it.
I didn't get the support I hoped for, so I kept going without it. Over the years, I led hackathons for regular students, teachers, municipalities, nonprofits, and companies, more than 100 in total. A few years later, after he had left the ministry, I met him again. By then, hackathons had become very popular. I asked him if he remembered what he had told me. He said, "You were ahead of your time."
Being underestimated didn't stop me. It showed me that I saw something others were not ready to see yet, and that the only way to prove it was to keep doing it.
What defining challenge revealed your greatest lesson in collaborative resilience?
When schools closed at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, I organized a national virtual hackathon, inviting students to develop solutions to problems the pandemic had created. Throughout April, they worked on ideas addressing loneliness, health, and spending long days at home. A company offered its video conferencing platform free of charge, and we scheduled the live finale for May 1.
As the finale began, people told me they could not get in. The platform's one month license had expired. The company was based in the United States, and I could not reach anyone. A teacher offered to help me move the event to Zoom. I had never used it, so I learned while running a live event. With the support of teachers and school principals, we made the finale happen.
Afterward, I learned Zoom thoroughly and went on to lead more online events, including international hackathons. The most valuable lesson was that I needed another person alongside me to run an event. Resilience is not doing everything alone. Taking responsibility includes recognizing when you need support.
How did you get your first 10 customers?
My first hackathon, in 2014, brought together four schools I already knew through Entrepreneurship for Kids. The next two came through a collaboration with a man who led science lessons in schools. He already knew these schools and offered them a hackathon, and we ran them together, one for fifth graders and one for seventh graders. Before COVID, I also led a mini hackathon for a delegation of students and parents from China. The person who organized the delegation found me on the internet.
After that, most clients came to me after seeing my work online or through word of mouth. I only started approaching schools myself after COVID began, once I had led a virtual national hackathon for students and felt confident. One of the first schools I approached asked me to lead an international hackathon.
The unconventional strategy that still works for me is that I rarely give away free advice. Instead, after every hackathon, I share what we did on LinkedIn, social networks, and WhatsApp groups. My message is simple: look what I did.
ABOUT GALIT:
Galit Zamler is a serial entrepreneur working at the intersection of technology and education, and the co-founder of Vickathon, a company that designs and leads experiential hackathons. Based in Ramat Gan, Israel, she has led more than 100 hackathons for schools, universities, municipalities, nonprofits, and companies.
Earlier in her career, Galit worked in a large company and was promoted into management. After reading Who Moved My Cheese, she realized it was time to move on, and she left within about two weeks. Her years inside organizations taught her how they work, what challenges they face, and what it means to be an intrapreneur.
In 2009, she founded the Entrepreneurship for Kids program, which equips teachers to develop entrepreneurial skills in their students. In 2014, she led her first student hackathon, with four schools from four cities in Israel. That event became the beginning of Vickathon, which Galit co-founded with her husband, who developed the company's dedicated digital platform. Galit leads the hackathons themselves, from designing the methodology and working with clients to facilitating the events. Her clients include Reckitt, Ramat Gan Municipality, Begin High School, and ELI, the Israel Association for Child Protection.
Galit believes hackathons are not only for programmers. Most of her participants are students, teachers, nonprofit teams, and employees of public sector and traditional organizations. Today, she is focused on bringing the hackathon format to more organizations in Israel and on leading international hackathons for organizations with sites abroad.
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