From 1 to 3 February 2019, students of the Master in Information and Computer Sciences (MICS) as well as from Saarland University participated in the hackathon, a concept launched for the first time at the University of Luxembourg by adjunct Prof. Dr. Sergio Coronado, with the support of Prof. Dr. Romain Martin, Vice-Rector for academic affairs, and the Luxembourg Tech School. Some researchers from the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) also took part in this first edition. The objective of the weekend was to challenge the participants during a design and coding marathon on Belval campus, in order to develop technology solutions to benefit society.
A hackathon is a design and coding marathon, where teams of two to five people work on an idea during two days, create a working product and pitch it in front of tech experts to win prizes. The MICS students initially worked during 12 weeks to prepare some initial solutions. The hackathon thus gave them the opportunity to further develop their project, which aims to contribute, positively, with technology to society. They were also supported by top coaches from the Luxembourg Tech School.
The winners of the first design and coding hackathon are Plarent Haxhidauti, Ema Kepuska, Elizabeth Olickal and Abderrahmane Mayouche. Their project, called “Finders”, consisted in designing an application for citizens in order to report infrastructure damage to local authorities.
Here are the four other projects presented during the weekend:
- Recycled Garbage Game was developed to teach kids about recycling. The team: Patrick Keller, Laura Plein and Jeff Meder.
- Andrea (Experience-Based Medicine) aims to overcome experience-based medicine by using existing models. The idea is to improve Medical Doctor “table” experience-based recommendations with model based on predictions, as well as to develop a user-friendly UX mobile application. The team: Daniele Proverbio, Niklas Dohringer, Ivan Zhuk and Frans van Tonder.
- Lobby4Good is a lobby for political decision-making, which is using Social Advocacy Platform to push citizen needs against industry needs. The team: Salah Ghamizi, Renaud Rwemalika, Johann Chopin and Alexandre Guidoux.
- Online Debates is a social media debate platform, which facilitates debates at different levels. The team: Maksym Zoziuk and Maxime Cid.
“We would like to create a culture of hacking and we are really happy to promote this kind of work here, at the University of Luxembourg”, explains adjunct Prof. Dr. Sergio Coronado. “Hackathons are powerful learning tools. The students should be very proud of what they accomplished throughout the weekend”.
As limited places were available, students needed to be confident in coding, UX and graphical design, and/or top presentation and pitching skills in order to participate in the hackathon.
The second edition will take place next year. Further information will follow during the coming winter semester.