
#AutomATAhon2024: Hackathon for testers
The #AutomATAhon2024 competition has successfully concluded, marking another thrilling chapter in the toughest test automation challenge. This 5th edition of the competition continued the #AutomATAhon tradition, which began in 2017, and remained dedicated to engaging the testing community in a dynamic automation challenge (Hackathon).
The competition was open not only to testers but also to entire testing organizations. Teams demonstrated their automation capabilities, making it an intense and exciting contest for automation enthusiasts. Participants tackled live application scenarios and automation challenges, with their solutions evaluated by a panel of esteemed jury members.
#AutomATAhon Details
This time there were 2 rounds for AutomATAhon competition.
Round 1
Date: 23rd November 2024
Timings: 1:00 pm – 8:00 pm (IST)
This round was online, team got challenge and top 7 teams were qualified for Round 2
Round 2
Date: 8th December 2024
Timings: 1:00 pm – 8:00 pm (IST)
This round was offline.
Congratulations to all the #AutomATAhon2024 winners for achieving success, winning exciting prizes, and gaining valuable learning experiences!
- All the teams who register for the event will be showcased on the AutomATAhon2024 page on the website and will garner 4000 points for their respective organization on Leaderboard.
- Top 5 teams (both the team members) will get a free entry to conference (ATAGTR2024)
- All the team members will be given a participation certificate
- Winning Team of the competition will be rewarded with INR 31,000 (Thirty One Thousand Indian Rupees) Cheque or Amazon Gift Voucher. Winning team members will also receive an individual winner certificate, Winning Team will receive a trophy on 8th December during #ATAGTR2024 award cermony.
- 1st Runner’s up Team will be rewarded with INR 11,000 (Eleven Thousand Indian Rupees) or Amazon Gift Voucher, Individual Certificates and a Team Trophy for 1st Runner up.
- 2nd Runner’s up Team in the competition will be rewarded with INR 5,000 (Five Thousand Indian Rupees) or Amazon Gift Voucher , Individual Certificate and a Team Trophy.
- 3rd Runner’s up Team in the competition will be rewarded with INR 2,000 (Two Thousand Indian Rupees) or Amazon Gift Voucher, Individual Certificate and a Team Trophy.
- 4th Runner’s up Team in the competition will be rewarded with INR 1,000 (Five Thousand Indian Rupees) or Amazon Gift Voucher, Individual Certificate and a Team Trophy.
- Winning team, 1st Runner Up Team, 2nd Runner Team, 3rd Runner Team and 4th Runner Team will garner 15000, 10000, 5000, 3000 and 1000 points on leaderboard respectively for their organizations.
- #ATAGTR2024 Leaderboard :https://gtr.agiletestingalliance.org/leaderboard/
- It is a time boxed event – which means a fixed duration will be provided to all the participants to solve the challenge
- You can use any open source automation tool(s). You do not need to setup the tool or framework on Jury machines.
- Round 1 would be held over Zoom/MS Teams (Virtual) and Round 2 will be conducted live during Conference location in the form of a live Quiz. Final Rankings will be based on 90% weightage from Round 1 and 10% weightage from Round 2.
- It is a team event. Maximum members in a team allowed are two (2)
- One laptop per team member is allowed and each team member should sign in from the same laptop that is used for coding/automation to the Zoom/MS Teams meeting
- The competition will be hosted using Microsoft Teams or Zoom, you need to ensure that you have access to Microsoft Teams / Zoom from your laptop and you need to turn video camera showing both the team members during the entire duration of the event. One team member has to share the screen showing what is being done. You should have stable internet connection during the competition so that video sharing is not hampered by bandwidth. If the video is not shared, it may be a reason for disqualification.
- Both the team members will be allocated a virtual room in the Zoom meeting, they must be present in that virtual room during the entire duration of competition. They can be physically present in different locations. Both the team members must keep their cameras on in the virtual room. One team member has to share their laptop / desktop screen. Jury members can ask other member also to share his/her screens on demand. One screen sharing (from one of the participants have to be continuously shared)
- There is no cap on the number of teams/registrations from a particular organization
- Use cases on API Testing, Mobile, UI and Functional Testing on multiple browsers, Reporting and other use cases may be there.
- Problem statements will be provided to all the teams at the start of the event. Participants would have to use their own private GIT Repo. Participants must automate the problem statement and hook with a CI system like Jenkins.
- Participants must use their own Jenkins or similar CI tool setup. They can have the setup ready before the competition starts.
- Team has to move the code into the GIT repo as per the scheduled time. Last checkin time to the GIT repo would be considered as the final submission time. Participants may have to make ATA Jury member as a collaborator in case required.
- Participants need to have a good internet bandwidth during the competition.
- It is advisable to use personal laptops rather than company, the application used for automation challenge may be hosted on IP address which may not be accessible from company’s VPN or company provided laptop.
- The server on which the application is hosted will be turned off after the time limit is reached, please ensure that the code checkin to git repository and execution readiness is achieved during the allocated time.
- During the Demo section of the competition, each team has to execute their code from the GIT code base. A new test environment (new server) may be given for the test execution, it is recommended that the pre and post test execution preparation should be planned for your tests to run seamlessly.
- Evaluation would be done based on completion of tasks/challenges. On completion and successful execution of challenge you score full marks associated with that challenge and NO marks will be given if the challenge is not completed. Partial completion of tasks will get NO marks.
In case of a tie-on total marks both in the round 1 and round 2, the tie breaker will be based on two parameters, time taken to solve all the challenges and best practices followed
Speed of solving the challenge (time stamp of the final code push in the repository) will be used as the first tie breaker in case the marks are equal and then on best practices.
some of the best practices parameters are listed below.
- Quality and stability of automation
- Ability to modify tests (changes, addition and deletion of test scenarios)
- Modularity
- Reusability
- Scalability
- Adaptability
- Design methodology
- Code quality
- Flexibility to integrate with CI tools
18. Jury members will not be evaluating the team members from their own organization.
19. Jury will select the top 5 entries or more for the final representation on 8th of December 2024
20. Non-participation of the teams during the conference (8th of December 2024) would be considered a reason for disqualification. All teams selected for final round hence must be present during the conference.
21. Jury’s decision would be final.
JURY
Below is our esteemed Jury for the competition.
Teams selected for Round 2

Komal Verma
Lead Automation Test Engineer
Pratham Software (PSI)

Deepika Vaishnave
Automation Test Lead
Pratham Software (PSI)

Riya Sonune
Test Automation Engineer
Nagarro Software

Saksham Singhal
Automation Tester
Nagarro Software

Chandrakant Makwana
Lead - Quality Analyst
Horizontal Digital

Prashant Shah
Test Solution Architect
Horizontal Digital

Diwakar Rana
Experienced Software Tester and Automation Engineer
CloudSufi India

Bharat Gulati
Associate Software Engineer
CloudSufi India
Competing Teams

Puja Sakhia
Senior Automation Test Analyst
Paul Mason Consulting

Nimesh Bhatt
Automation Lead
Paul Mason Consulting

Komal Verma
Lead Automation Test Engineer
Pratham Software (PSI)

Deepika Vaishnave
Automation Test Lead
Pratham Software (PSI)

Somendra Sharma
Senior Test Engineer
Pratham Software (PSI)

Chainsingh Shekhawat
Lead Test Engineer
Pratham Software (PSI)

Riya Sonune
Test Automation Engineer
Nagarro Software

Saksham Singhal
Automation Tester
Nagarro Software

Chandrakant Makwana
Lead - Quality Analyst
Horizontal Digital

Prashant Shah
Test Solution Architect
Horizontal Digital

Diwakar Rana
Experienced Software Tester and Automation Engineer
CloudSufi India

Bharat Gulati
Associate Software Engineer
CloudSufi India