Inside Nintendo of Europe’s university hackathon

We launched ServiceNow at Nintendo of Europe in 2024, and today we operate the platform in seven European languages as well as Japanese. We started with IT Service Management (ITSM)), IT Operations Management ((ITOM), and Hardware Asset Management. But from day 1, our ambition extended beyond IT.

I knew we needed more than just a powerful technology platform. We had to make service management exciting, to showcase its benefits without putting people to sleep. Fortunately, my experience as a university instructor is relevant to that specific challenge.

At Nintendo, we created a joint corporate-university ServiceNow hackathon titled “More Than Just IT – Thinking Beyond IT with Enterprise Service Management.” It’s basically a creative work session where teams develop solutions to real-world challenges over a short period of time—fueled by motivation, imagination, collaboration, coffee, snacks, and a lot of whiteboards.

Our goal was to bring together students from my university and employees/professionals from Nintendo—mixing students’ perspectives with those of experienced workers from departments such as IT, HR, and customer service. Half of the students came from business backgrounds; the other half, technical disciplines. We formed six diverse teams, each with up to 10 participants—most of whom had not worked together before.

We gave the teams just 48 hours to design a mobile application for a fictional company, Smoothie Magic SE, a sustainable smoothie maker.

Importantly, the challenges put before participants were deliberately not IT specific. One example was building an app to manage company cars and leased bicycles —scheduling maintenance, reporting damage, and tracking usage—much like how IT assets such as laptops are managed today. We wanted to shift participants’ perspectives  and demonstrate that ServiceNow is not just for IT: it can make life easier for everyone across the business.

Each team had to deliver:

• A working mobile prototype

• A comprehensive pitch deck

• A presentation to a jury

To incentivize the students, their work also counted toward their university grades.

We received fantastic assistance from the ServiceNow account team in Munich, who helped prepare a lab environment and a tailored training curriculum. Still, I was a little nervous. Many participants had no prior experience with ServiceNow. Would this really work?

To support the teams, we added "startup coaches" from our HR department and designated ServiceNow mentors the teams could consult if they got stuck.

At the start, we told the participants: Be brave. Be creative. Imagine this is your own company and you are pitching on an episode of Shark Tank. The only limit is time. Everything else is up to you.

From the very first minutes, the atmosphere was electric. Ideas were generated, challenged, discarded, and refined. You could see individuals coming together as a team. The diversity of backgrounds sparked unique perspectives. 

Of course, everyone wanted to achieve more than was realistic in just two days, but that ambition amped up the energy. In the end, every team succeeded in presenting a working solution to the jury, and the quality and creativity of those solutions were truly impressive.

The impact of the hackathon wasn't just measured in prototypes or pitch decks. It was about insights, inspiration, and breaking down barriers. Everyone—students and Nintendo colleagues alike—experienced firsthand how quickly digital solutions can be developed using ServiceNow. And most importantly, they witnessed how the platform can bring value beyond the traditional IT domain.

It was a true exchange of ideas, and a vivid memory that will stay with all of us. It’s about building real solutions that bring real value—simply and intuitively.

Promoting that understanding of an ESM was one of our most important goals, and the hackathon showed it can be achieved. And best of all, at the end of the two days, everyone went home with a smile on their face. That was exactly the result we were hoping for.