Timisoara’s first action Cultural2Business Hackathon began on August 23rd, an event that brought together representatives of the cultural and creative, tech and business industries.
The event was jointly organised by the Municipality of Timișoara and the Flight Foundation. The hackathon, which ran from Monday to Wednesday, was "an event that brings together representatives of the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI), Tech (smart) and business (tourism and hospitality) under the same roof, thinking and developing cultural approaches to new business initiatives” said the representatives of the municipality. Participation was free, and the best solutions designed during the event was awarded 5,000 euros each.
For more information: Cultural2Business.
"The event was designed to improve the policy instrument - the Integrated Urban Development Strategy Timișoara Growth Pole", the representatives of the municipality stated.
The hackathon addressed to people already involved in the CCI, as well as people specialised in technology (applications, algorithms), representatives of the Tech sector (smart), marketing and communication, business (tourism and hospitality) and management. For three days, programmers, specialists, creatives, investors, public authorities and companies developed solutions that respond to the challenges that Timisoara will face in 2023, when the city holds the title of European Capital of Culture.
Two pre-events containing an idea presentation session, a team work session and a networking component, which aimed at generating content and attracting participants to the hackathon, were organised.
The hackathon brought together 16 mentors and 7 jury members who were involved in the process of helping the teams to validate both the problems they started from and the solutions they prototyped during the three days. 71 people registered for the event and 12 ideas were generated. Various sectors are well-presented, approximately 40% of the participants were from the CCI, 40% from the technology (smart) sectors and 20% are businesses.
The judging criteria were:
- Validity - Are we talking about a real problem? A real need? Does the idea come as a solution to the problem?
- Sustainability - Has the team thought of a way in which the idea will be sustainable even after the hackathon?
- Impact – How many people will be impacted by the idea? 10 people? 100? 10000?
The top 3 projects awarded were: MAPPO, CleverEat and Fain Turism.
MAPPO is a platform for monitoring traffic in the city, private parking lots and crowded public areas. CleverEat is an application that solves the problem of food waste in restaurants. Fain Turism is an application that allows the purchase of tickets for both public transport and cultural events, through a personalised profile.
The teams benefited from post-hackathon mentoring support from the companies present in the hackathon, in a staged process of developing their business ideas. On October 29th, a Progress Interview will be organised in which each winning team will have access to 5000 euros in order to complete the functional implementation of each solution.
The programme of the hackathon, which took place between August 23-25, 2021, at Iulius Town, was:
Day 1, Mon 23 Aug, 18:00 - 24:00
18:00 - 19:00 - Opening & Idea Pitching
19:00 - 20:00 - Team formation
20:00 - 22:00 - Mentorship
22:00 - 24:00 - Work Time
Day 2, Tue 24 Aug, 18:00 - 24:00
18:00 - 19:00 - Workshop 'How to Pitch'
19:00 - 22:00 - Mentorship
22:00 - 24:00 - Work Time
Day 3, Wed 25 Aug, 16:30 - 24:00
16:30 - 17:00 - Open Doors
17:00 - 18:00 - Pitch presentation & Mentorship
18:00 - 19:30 - Presentations & Judging
20:30 - 21:00 - Finalists pitching at TechTalks
