We’ve travelled around the world with you throughout 2018 to learn, compete and pitch. Here’s a glimpse into our favourite tech events of the year! We hope you join us for more adventures in 2019.
1. DT AI Hack
DT AI Hack, Berlin, Germany — January. With the launch of the hubraum Tech incubator at the end of 2017 in Berlin, Deutsche Telekom planned non-stop events for the upcoming year. To kick off 2018, they hosted their first AI hackathon where the goal was to innovate the customer experience using AI technologies. With a focus on highlighting key aspects of the AI eLIZA project, there were six challenges to choose from — two of the challenges were supported by tech partners NVIDIA and Facebook — and brought together over 80 participants coached by the 27 specialist mentors.
The winning solution ‘AVA’ — the brainchild of catshopper.com — is a chatbot that simulates customer service interactions via the Facebook Messenger app and was rewarded a bounty of 4,000 €. Other winners received additional amazing prizes, including a visit to Facebook and Station F in Paris!
2. NBCU Hackathon
NBCU Hackathon, Miami, USA — March. 154 passionate developers, designers, and idea generators gathered at the brand new Telemundo Center in Miami to help Comcast NBCUniversal leverage emerging technologies to enhance storytelling experiences, foster deep fan interaction and promote community engagement with NBCU brands/content.
At the end of the 24 hours, 30 teams pitched their ideas to a panel of NBCU and Telemundo executives. Team Crushing It, well… they crushed it (pun intended) with their program called ‘Relive’, which brings stories back to life from different viewpoints. The team took home the $10K Grand Prize! Read about one participant’s experience at the hackathon
3. Android Makers
Android Makers, Paris, France — April. Android Makers, dubbed THE biggest Android conference in Europe, brought us insights into the latest improvements in Core Android development. We got the scoop on ConstraintLayout views, via core languages Kotlin through the architecture, the tools and more.
The whopping 90 speakers and 800+ attendees made this a memorable event. Read one attendee’s experience here. You can check out all the talks for yourself on YouTube. Don’t miss the 2019 edition!
4. Vivatech TechCrunch Hackathon
Vivatech TechCrunch Hackathon, Paris, France — May. This massive hackathon which took place during the biggest tech conference in Europe, brought together 500 people to solve five major challenges. IBM, LeBonCoin, GEFCO TALAN, Renault, and Microsoft each proposed exciting problems for tech enthusiasts to crack with innovative solutions —all in just 48 hours!
Participants worked relentlessly and took the big stage by storm with their pitches. From connected lockers to detecting Autism with deep learning — these must have been the most diverse pitches in the history of hackathons! Read about the winners on TechCrunch.com. We can’t wait for 2019!
5. Intel Buzz Games Conference
Intel Buzz Workshop London, UK — June & Paris, France — September. Game Developers from all over Europe travelled to London and Paris this year to hear from the best in Game Development and try out the latest gear. The Developer Showcase allowed indies, and studios, to present their latest creations—and we got to play ’em all!
Speakers from around the world came to share their gaming prowess and enlightened us with tips for launching a game in the super-competitive market, effective game design, AR development, building a crowd-funded video game, and the recurring theme: 3D realistic avatars and how they are coming our way!
Read this write-up from ChronikSpartan who attended the London Buzz Workshop and took part in the Developer Showcase.
6. Sogeti GreenXGames
Sogeti GreenXGames, Paris, France — June. Hands-down the most fun hackathon of the year. Don’t believe us? Well, the objective was to save the Unicorns and the planet by creating revolutionary games to change the world. Still not convinced? Keep reading.
120 participants created 34 amazing games, with the Top 3 taking home prizes: Hungry Trash, Trash Planet, and Garbage League. Read all about the winning game (in French) here and check out the video from the event to see the craziness that went down!
7. Airbus Critical App Challenge
Airbus Critical App Challenge, Belgium — August & UAE — Oct. Following the launch of the specialised Airbus device: the Tactilon Dabat device, Airbus were on the look out for startups with an app that would help the device’s mission critical users. The two competitions were launched with the ultimate goal to help firefighters, police, and public safety workers improve their work.
Selected as finalists were teams from across Europe and the MENA region, who proposed high-tech solutions addressing Network Selection, Mission Checklists, Facial Recognition, Smart Alerts and more. Winners from Belgium (see below) showed off their solution at the ASTRID user days expo in Brussels, and winners from the Middle East showcased their solution at the GITEX exhibition in Dubai.
8. Rolls-Royce Startup Hack
Rolls-Royce Startup Hack, Sheffield, UK — October. We travelled up North to the ANRC 2050 factory to gather various Predictive Maintenance startups to work alongside Rolls-Royce during this manufacturing challenge.
Teams were given live data from the Rolls Royce aerospace manufacturing department, and had just 48 hours to come to grips with the data and business rules and produce an algorithm that automates the decision making process. The winning team was Alpha AI! You can read all about this amazing event right here.
9. Baidu Facemoji KeyJam
Baidu Facemoji KeyJam, San Francisco, USA + London, UK — November. UX/UI, Graphic and Digital Designers from San Francisco and London all participated in these two events to create a new keyboard for the emoji challenge run by Baidu.
Themes were unveiled on the day and participants were tasked to think outside the box to create fresh new designs for Baidu’s emoji keyboard collection, resulting in a rather difficult, yet creative challenge — check out the video here!
10. Code AutoMobility LA
Code Automobility, LA, USA — November. This mega-hackathon sponsored by Visa and General Motors (GM) put forward the challenge of developing solutions with data from the City of Angels, to help drivers and passengers get to destinations safer and smarter, and make seamless in-car payments using Visa and GM APIS. A grand prize of $ 40K was at stake for the teams.
Developers met to build connected car apps utilising both Visa and GM APIs. Team Tribal Scale won the grand prize for their AI-driven e-commerce platform, which allows consumers to purchase items directly from the vehicle for curbside pickup, eliminating parking needs. Pit Stop won second place for their machine learning, predictive maintenance solution for ride-share drivers.
Read all about it and watch participants talk about the event here!
