Barrick Gold Corporation

In early March, Barrick hosted its first ever hackathon. More than 100 people spent 54 hours developing digital solutions to two Barrick business challenges. Most were new to mining and possessed the kind of skills the industry needs. There were software developers and data scientists, user experience designers, electromechanical engineers, mathematicians, and an astrophysicist. Many of these individuals came with, well, let’s just call them interesting views about the industry. “Take no offense to this,” said one participant, “but I thought the mining industry were dinosaurs.” This and other perceptions evolved over the course of the weekend and participants developed some remarkable prototypes to address two Barrick business challenges. The hackathon underscores the Company’s efforts to drive innovation by looking outward and attracting new talent to Barrick’s already outstanding workforce.