Ideas for a Better Sofia: Sofia Innovation Hackathon 2017

For the fourth consecutive year, Innovation Starter organized Academy of Innovation – Sofia Innovation Hackathon for students. The most important part of the competition was a 24-hour marathon, where the young teams developed and presented great ideas within three categories: Digital Environment, Products and Services of the Future, Branding /Competitive Advantages/ of Sofia City.

This year students from New Bulgarian University (NBU), Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (Sofia University), University of National and World Economy (UNWE), American University in Bulgaria (AUBG), Software University (SoftUni), University of Finance, Business and Entrepeneurship (VUZF) took part in the event.

The competition is supported by the European Commission in Bulgaria and Sofia Municipality. The prize pool was 10,000 lv. for the team with the most creative applicable idea and a visit to Brussels with the assistance of the European Commission in Bulgaria.

Out of a total of 110 registered teams on the first day of Sofia Innovation Hackathon 2017, 28 teams of innovators qualified and went on to the 24-hour thought and work marathon to come to an idea for achieving a quality change in the capital city. In all 24 hours of the hackathon, the students were accompanied by mentors who went from team to team, asked questions, gave directions for the development of the idea, or deliberately diverted the conversation in a bid to boost its development. Among the teams’ first ideas were proposals for medical breakthroughs, how to travel smarter and faster on the subway, how to work in the park, a new registered sign for Sofia, how to unite people for urban causes, how to live together in a more eco-friendly, quality and digital way. Twenty-one of the 28 teams dared to participate in the final stage and presented their final ideas to the jury, which chose four finalists:

• Phil`s mind with a virtual reality project for reading data from magnetic resonance imaging in the medicine;
• CityIT– a mobile application featuring useful tourist and service information in Sofia, GPS, audio guide, visual recognition of objects;
• Shift – developing innovative biomaterials;
• Adventure Squad – a mobile app that offers possible entertainment options at the end of the workday.

After the final vote, Phil`s mind was declared winner with an idea that would matter in medicine far beyond the boundaries of Sofia – an apparatus which converts magnetic resonance images into a 3D model through virtual reality.

An interview with the winners can be found here, and all presentations of the ideas – here.