Leap of Fate 2025: Collaborative innovation without boundaries

Every company has its own culture – a set of routines, rituals, and ways of doing things. At Wapice, a key part of that culture is experimenting with new technologies and innovating together. While that might sound like a recruitment slogan or typical LinkedIn hype, at Wapice, it’s genuinely true. Our people are constantly encouraged to learn, test, and step out of their comfort zones with emerging technologies.

A great example of this is our annual Leap of Fate hackathon, where Wapice’s bold engineers are truly unleashed. “Leap of Fate?” you might ask – shouldn’t it be Leap of Faith? No, the name is intentional. Leap of Fate hints at a jump into the unknown, a ‘fate-driven’ plunge that might even lead to a bit of creative chaos.

What on earth is a hackathon? Does it have anything to do with hacking? Not really — at least not in the traditional sense. A hackathon is when employees come together to innovate, solve problems, and hype with technology. The event may have a common goal, theme, or project, but none of these are mandatory. A hackathon can be a competition, a training session, a brainstorming event, or even a side event for product development — its format can be freely adapted to fit the needs of the organization.

At Wapice, a hackathon primarily means freedom. The meaning behind Wapice’s Leap of Fate hackathon revolves around skill development, enhancing wellbeing at work, and strengthening company culture. The goal isn’t to create a market-ready product right away but to give employees the chance to innovate without limits. The event lasts one workday, and the only requirement is some form of documentation — like a video — that can be shared with other employees. This also enables projects like personal home labs or automation experiments to be developed alongside like-minded enthusiasts.

One of the best things about Leap of Fate is that it brings people together. During the event, you meet colleagues you don’t usually see — like remote workers or employees from different offices. At all Wapice locations, everyone spends the evening working on the most imaginative projects, sharing their successes through a common instant messaging channel.

The event culminates the next day during a coffee break, when everyone gathers on Teams to watch the hackathon results and vote for the coolest project. It’s also a chance to admire colleagues’ creativity and share feelings about what can be achieved together in just one day.

My first Leap of Fate experience was in 2024, just a few months after I started in Wapice’s Talents program. I joined a project led by a teammate, where we built a portable gate scanner using a Raspberry Pi. We didn’t end up with a finished product or library in one evening, but the project helped us get to know each other better and sparked my interest in the Pi. After the event, I got my own Raspberry Pi and started building a home lab around it.

At the 2025 Leap of Fate event, I built my own server for decrypting LUKS-encrypted hard drives as part of a virtual server encryption testing project on my own network. This time, I also took on the role of organizer: I communicated the event internally and handled practical arrangements. I saw this as a great opportunity to get to know different functions, meet new people, and learn a bit about event management.