Over 20,900 participants from across the EU and beyond joined the #EUvsVirus Hackathon led by the European Innovation Council this weekend to offer their time, talent and business ideas to help support Europe’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Over 2,150 solutions were submitted in areas including health and life (898), business continuity (381), remote working and education (270), social and political cohesion (452), digital finance (75) and other challenges (83). Germany (389), Italy (320) and Spain (315) submitted the highest number of solutions, which range from a ‘modular micro factory’ to a ‘natural language processing system for medical reporting’.
The event, which involved over 380 volunteers, 2,400 mentors and over 800 partners, brought together people of 141 different nationalities, as well as different areas of expertise and backgrounds. More information on participation per country.
‘Winning’ solutions in each challenge area will be announced on Thursday at 11:00 (CET) during an #EUvsVirus online award ceremony aired here. Winners will be invited to join a European Innovation Council COVID Platform, which will be launched on 30 April to facilitate connections with end users, such as hospitals, and provide access to investors, foundations and other funding opportunities from across the EU.
To select the winners, ideas will be weighted – by a large team of jury members with in-depth experience in relevant domains – according to impact potential (20%), scalability (20%), novelty/innovation (20%), prototype completion (20%), business plan (20%).
In addition to the opportunities offered by the EIC COVID Platform, cash prizes will be offered by partners and the EIC will also host a Matchathon matchmaking weekend between winners, partners and potential investors.
