Hackathons are becoming increasingly popular in Switzerland. These events help tackle complex problems and challenges by favoring intense collaboration between participants coming from very different disciplines such as product design, software development, prototyping or design thinking. Beginning this Friday, Chiasso will host a 48 hours Hack the City hackathon to create projects around the topic “Living the City in the Digital Era”, an exciting program for a promising event. Hack Zurich, the biggest European hackathon, taking place in September is already sold out, however there are several hackathon planned in the next months.
Starting on September 25th, another 48 hours Hack for Ageing Well event will be organized in St. Gallen. Participants will be encouraged to work on projects relevant to the themes of Active and Assisted Living. Top projects will be recognized and showcased at the international AAL Forum – which begins right after the hackathon, continuing until September 28.
From October 29th to 30th, Food Hack Geneva will encourage participants at the Seedspace to create solutions to tackle food waste and reduce food-related emissions in Switzerland. Interested persons can learn more about this FoodHack event on its website.
Hosted by EPAM in collaboration with Swiss Finance + Technology Association and Validity Labs, the Blockchain Hackathon due in November in Zurich will encourage teams to disrupt the insurance industry in 24 hours. For this event, the three largest SwissLife, Zurich and SwissRe have created challenges inspired by real life market problems. Interested participants can learn more on the web site.
Science enthusiasts will also have their hackathon. From November 25th to 27th, the Inartis Foundation based in Renens, close to Lausanne, will also be organizing their First Science Hackathon at UniverCité to show that interdisciplinary science is hard but not impossible. More information is available on the website of the event and their Facebook page.
Picture: Arkathon Valais