COVID-19
Covid-19
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; AnouarAdlani, 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, DirectorFondation du Grand-Duc et de la Grande-Duchesse andStefan 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 build 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.
TheSave lives category winners, EmailTree AI for Healthcare communities,received its award from Pascal Steichen, CEO of SECURITEMADEINLU. 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 knowledgeeasily. 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 Euro-DNS, 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.