Last weekend, the Belgium edition of Hack the Crisis took place. During the hackathon, various teams competed to come up with innovative solutions against COVID-19. In the end, no fewer than 36 teams and 614 people from 7 different time zones took part in the online event. More than 80 mentors assisted the teams with their expertise. Participants set out to find solutions to the biggest challenges in healthcare, education, business continuity, logistics, and wellbeing.
More than 600 participants registered for the hackathon HACK THE CRISIS Belgium, of which approximately 250 people lasted all the way to the end. The participants formed 36 teams, each given a total of 48 hours to work out a concrete solution for a specific challenge. The entire hackathon took place online, via various communication platforms. During the hackathon, the teams got assistance from different mentors with expertise in various disciplines. They answered questions, shared contacts from their network and guided the teams where necessary.
Who Won?
The 10 best pitches were presented during a live stream on Sunday evening, 29th of March. Minister-President of the Flemish Government Jan Jambon opened the virtual pitching event with a keynote. With a prize pool of € 25,000, the winning teams will be able to further develop their solutions.
The jury, including founding partner of The Factory Wouter Desmet, picked out these 3 winning solutions:
- 1: Corona Home Test
- 2: WeCare
- 3: AnalysisMode
The Corona Home Test was the big winner of the Hack The Crisis event. It’s an online platform where people can order a test kit. The kit allows people to test themselves for the coronavirus at home, share the results and consult the anonymously collected data with parameters such as symptoms, age groups, etc. The Corona Home Test team will receive a support-package from EY, worth € 15,000. The prize includes a potential co-creation track, individual mentoring from EY partner Wouter Desmet, and innovation support from The Factory team.
Watch the 10 best pitches here.
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