Hack the Crisis, Luxembourg’s first online Hackathon, took
place during 24 hours over the past weekend and enabled the creation of 33
solutions to fight the crisis. This remarkable event surpassed the organisers’ expectations
by gathering 200 participants, 60 mentors and 13 jury members. The Hackathon
against COVID-19 was organized by the House of Startups/Luxembourg Chamber of
Commerce, Docler Holding, Junction and Farvest, and 15 additional partners
joined in. A fund-raiser was also set up and the event managed to raise EUR 15.000
for the Fondation du Grand-Duc et de la Grande-Duchesse, which will
reallocate the funds to organizations bolstering digital inclusion.
“We were happy
to have twice the number of attendees and mentors we aimed for. We were also
impressed by the symbolic number of 19 partners joining us for this first
Luxembourg online hackathon to fight COVID-19 and its consequences. In addition, we are delighted to support the
Fondation du
Grand-Duc et de la Grande-Duchesse that will provide phones to children impacted
by domestic violence through Femmes en Détresse and will give laptops to university
students in need”, stated
Karoly Papp, CEO of Docler Holding.
The jury included
Philippe Linster, CEO House of Startups; Diane Tea, Vice President Luxembourg
Business Angel Network; Serge Linckels, Deputy Director Ministry of Education; Dr.
Sergio Coronado, , Founder, Lead Coach, Luxembourg Tech School ASBL; Xavier
Buck, serial entrepreneur; Anouar Adlani, CIO NameSpace Group; Carlos Gonser,
Engineering Manager Docler Holding; Gilbert Wolter, Sales and Marketing
Director, Foyer; Kolos Kaszaly, CTO Docler Holding; Pascal Steichen, CEO
SECURITYMADEIN.LU; Petrus Holm, CEO Junction; Philippe Majerus, Director
Fondation du Grand-Duc et de la Grande-Duchesse and Stefan Berend, Head of Start-up
Acceleration, Luxinnovation.
“We are used to tech events, but we never expected to have
such an impressive online tech event. Amongst the participants, we counted over
44 different nationalities. Once
again, we proved that when we work together, technology is a key element to
help us all thrive and show solidarity; to educate and to shape the future; to
save lives, communities, social interaction and businesses.”, said Kamel
Amroune, CEO Farvest.
“At first, it might have seemed ambitious to initiate a
project like this from scratch only a few days prior to the event. But we knew
that Luxembourg’s innovation ecosystem, entrepreneurs, partners, startups and
mentors would join us along with Docler Holding, Farvest, Junction and the
Chamber of Commerce. Then as we saw all these new projects and ideas being built
by the participants and progressing with the help of mentors over the weekend, most
of us on the jury really felt a collective pride towards Luxembourg’s
innovation ecosystem. The turnout and the results of this first online
hackathon held in Luxembourg through these difficult times were outstanding.
Therefore, we sincerely hope that many of these projects will capitalize on the
momentum provided by this hackathon, the mentors or the partners’ special
rewards to evolve into startups.”, concluded Philippe Linster, CEO of the House
of Startups and President of the Jury.
33 projects submitted, 5 winners
A total of 33 projects were submitted through Slack, thanks
to the support of the Finnish based Hackathon experts, Junction. The 24-hour event
was officially launched and livestreamed on Facebook on Friday, with an
introduction by Carlo Thelen, CEO of the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce. The awards
ceremony took place the next day and presented the top 10 projects.
The Save
lives category winners, EmailTree AI for Healthcare communities, received its award
from Pascal Steichen, CEO of SECURITYMADEINLU. The winners won Gartners’ prize
consisting of one pass for Gartner Symposium Barcelona and two months of Agile
support to develop the project. This project was proposed by a Luxembourg based
startup and offers healthcare professionals or communities the possibility to
connect with their peers using machine learning and AI.
The Save
education category winner, PeerTutor, was created by students from Luxembourg, and
they won EURODNS’s prize: a EUR 500 voucher for their tutoring platform made
for students to share knowledge easily. The award was handed out by Sergio
Coronado, Founder of Luxembourg Tech School ASBL.
SuperHeld
won the Save communities and social interaction category with an application to
connect vulnerable people in need of assistance with volunteers. The app would
help facilitate essential services such as picking-up groceries, going to
pharmacies, or sending mail for instance. They won a spot in one of Nyuko’s
programmes including individual and group coaching. The prize was virtually
handed out by Diane Tea, Vice President of the Luxembourg Business Angel
Network.
An app to
improve the shopping experience won the Save businesses category: Time2Shop. Xavier
Buck, renowned entrepreneur, presented the award. This app gives details about queues in
supermarkets and shops and suggests the best time frames for its users to go shopping.
They won a one-month use of flex desk
from Luxembourg-City Incubator.
Using
e-thinking, S@afeOffice developed the concept of the open office and created an
application that adopts the lessons learned during the COVID crisis into a hot
desk and smart office solution. The “Think about tomorrow” category winners won
a EUR 500 voucher from EURODNS, which was presented by Kolos Kaszaly, CTO at
Docler Holding.
All the
winners also received a one-year exclusive VIP Luxembourg-China Chamber of
Commerce membership.
Contact:
contact@hackthecrisisluxembourg.com