Once again, the unique 25-hour, nationwide HACKATHON FULDA last weekend attracted software geniuses and people with entrepreneurial spirit from all over Germany. The six-strong team "Deep Thought" won over the jury with their convincing solution for a smart city application. € 2000 prize money and a unique network consisting of regional companies, institutions and public partners are what distinguish the event. EDAG, the world's largest independent engineering service provider, once again supported the Hackathon 2021 as both an organiser and a sponsor. The company regards the competition as the perfect platform for putting the qualities required of future software development specialists to the test.
The HACKATHON FULDA was held for the third time in a row this year. Under the motto "smart city – smart country – smart you", the search was on for intelligent solutions for networked city life. To enable them to make the best possible use of the 25 hours, the hackers arrived with all kinds of equipment and enormous suitcases. In order to be able to cover the heavy charging requirements of the high-performance computers, the organisers had to quickly increase the power socket capacity at the university.
Even though the teams were competing against each other to find the smartest solution for the city of the future, a sporting sense was still in evidence: whenever a problem arose, the teams put their heads together to find a solution. Apart from the technical software component, decisive components were the embedding of the solution in an overall concept and the presentation to the selected jury of experts.
Heiko Herchet, Senior Sales Manager at EDAG and co-organiser, reports on the HACKATHON FULDA weekend: "Congratulations to the winning team, "Deep Thought". The students skilfully interlinked the city's services with their smart city app solution aimed at creating a central digital point of contact for residents and tourists. It was not just the technical component, the "code" which won the jury over. First and foremost, the group's overall concept for digitally linking the many services with each other and making it possible to experience them brings new impulses for cities and municipalities in the age of digitalisation. Every year, it is impressive to see the inventiveness and commitment applied by the participants as they search for solutions for our digital, networked lives. I would like to express my unqualified praise of all the other teams and their performance. We are proud to have supported the format as both an organiser and a sponsor for the third year."
Guided city tours, refuse collection or visits to the local authorities - with Deep Thought's solution, everything is available from one source, via a smartphone application.
Second place was awarded to the team "Runtime Terror" while third place going to the team "ToWhite". The audience award was secured by the team "SmartX".
Even after the successful conclusion of the Hackathon, none of the results of the competition entries will be forgotten. Region Fulda GmbH, organiser of the event, announced that all the solutions developed would again be analysed afterwards, and potential concepts for further development and realisation within the region of Fulda examined. The SMART City initiative in particular offers interesting potential for taking up innovative concepts and transferring them to a practical test phase.
The Hackathon 2021 was organised by the EDAG Group, Region Fulda GmbH, the district of Fulda, the SMART CITY Eichenzell, the University of Fulda, Engineering-High-Tech-Cluster Fulda e.V. and RhönEnergie Fulda. The EDAG Group worked with OSTHESSEN|NEWS as the exclusive media partner for the HACKATHON FULDA.
