What inspires someone to become a hack coach, and what makes a hackathon truly successful? Ahead of the Eclipse SDV Hackathon 2026, we spoke with Christian Schilling (Accenture) and Ramachandran Chakravadhanula (ZF) about their challenges, the technologies participants will work with, and the potential for creative and unexpected solutions.
What motivated you to sign up as a hack coach?
Christian Schilling: Attending OCX for the first time this year and then right afterwards supporting the SDV Hackfest in Esslingen made me realise how much SDV is a community rather than just a collection of technologies. I believe in-person events like conferences and hackathons are essential to grow the reach of SDV and open source in general. So supporting the hackathon as a hack coach is a no-brainer.
Ramachandran Chakravadhanula: My biggest motivation is the opportunity to give back to the engineering community and help participants in their innovative ideas. Additionally, I wanted to share my practical experience, support the Eclipse SDV community, and help participants turn these ambitious ideas into working solutions. Being a hack coach also gives me the opportunity to mentor talented people, exchange knowledge, and learn from the fresh perspectives they bring. Also, I particularly enjoy the energy of a hackathon, where collaboration and experimentation can quickly transform an idea into something tangible.
What are you most looking forward to about the Eclipse SDV Hackathon?
Christian: Meeting new and different people and seeing what they will build.
Ramachandran: I am looking forward to seeing how teams with different backgrounds combine the available Eclipse SDV technologies and create solutions that we, as challenge designers, may not have anticipated. It is inspiring to watch participants progress from understanding a complex problem to presenting a working prototype within a short and intensive event. I am equally excited about the knowledge exchange, because coaches also learn a great deal from the creativity and unconventional thinking of participants.
Christian, you’re a hack coach for the “Hack to the Future” challenge. What are your previous experiences with the technologies used for this challenge?
Christian: I’m mainly an Eclipse OpenBSW maintainer so my previous experience is focused on that project. OpenBSW will serve as an opportunity for the participants to get a feel for not just getting the features to work on a functional level, but also how to target smaller embedded platforms than most are probably used to.
Why would you recommend participants to choose this challenge?
Christian: The challenge is quite close to a full real world end-to-end safety feature. It provides an opportunity to have a peek at many different levels of the automotive stack.
Rama, you’re a hack coach for the “Doctor Whodunit” challenge. What are your previous experiences with the technologies used for this challenge?
Ramachandran: The Doctor Whodunit challenge brings together several technologies that I work with, most notably Eclipse OpenSOVD, where I serve as a Core Workstream Responsible and Committer. Over the years, I have learned that diagnosing complex software systems is often like solving a detective story: you gather evidence, connect the dots, and identify the real root cause. That is exactly what makes this challenge so interesting. It combines modern SDV technologies, diagnostics, and data analysis in a hands-on way, allowing participants to experience how vehicle software issues can be investigated and understood in a real-world context.
Why would you recommend participants to choose this challenge?
Ramachandran: Doctor Whodunit combines an engaging detective story with a highly relevant automotive safety problem: protecting an EV battery thermal-runaway warning chain from faults that could silently disable it. Participants can explore how technologies such as OpenSOVD, openDuT, uProtocol, Ankaios, KUKSA, AutoSD, S-CORE, and SDV Blueprints work together in a realistic scenario. It is a great choice for anyone who wants to experiment with modern SDV technologies while building something technically challenging, meaningful, and reusable.
“A working prototype is important, but success also comes from experimenting without fear, learning from failures, and supporting one another throughout the journey.”
– Ramachandran Chakravadhanula
Where do you see the greatest potential for creative or unexpected solutions?
Christian: I think there is potential for creative solutions everywhere. In particular in places I don’t expect.
Ramachandran: The greatest creative potential lies in how participants connect fault injection, runtime supervision, vehicle data, diagnostics, and safety evidence into one clear and understandable story. Teams could surprise us with intelligent event correlation, automated root-cause analysis, innovative visualisations, or entirely new ways of linking an injected fault to its detection, mitigation, and final verdict.
Complete the sentence: “A successful hackathon is one where …”
Christian: … everyone has a good time and learns something new and unexpected.
Ramachandran: … participants leave with new knowledge, meaningful connections, and the confidence to continue turning their ideas into reality.
A working prototype is important, but success also comes from experimenting without fear, learning from failures, and supporting one another throughout the journey. If participants remain inspired to develop their ideas or contribute to the open-source community after the event, the hackathon has achieved something truly valuable.
