This marks the fourth occurrence of this event and the second year it has been open to a wide audience from all bachelor’s programmes. It also serves as an excellent introduction to the spring semester. Four days of intensive brainstorming and work provide a valuable transition back into schoolwork after the Christmas break.
Jim Seltenrijch, the ‘spiritual father’ of EBS bachelor’s hackathons: “Four years ago we started with student hackathons as a small assignment within the Impactful Entrepreneurship programme. As we were impressed with the results of these first hackathons, we explored how we could grow this small assignment into an actual course in which all EBS bachelor students could gather. With the help of my colleagues Marge Täks, Ülle Pihlak, and Ester Eomois the EBS hackathon elective was born.”
This year’s hackathon kicked off with students addressing challenges from the REaD, as introduced by Maaja Hallik. The primary focus of the hackathon, however, was on the topic of active ageing. Ester Eomois introduced this important issue to our students, explaining the challenges and guiding them as they thought of solutions. The ideas were impressive, ranging from apps and smart home systems to augmented reality memory games, and plans for financial management and organising events.
The projects were evaluated by a panel of judges, featuring Monika Pärnsalu from Tallinna Loomeinkubaator / Tallinn Creative Incubator, Mart Habakuk, Ester Eomois, and Karoline Jostov from EBS.
The winning projects this time were:
First place - Timmy, which is a user-friendly app to help seniors stay in touch and get the care they need. The team behind this was Hendri Parrol, Kaur Kalmu, Aleks Paluvee, and Karel Eerme. Timmy also won a special prize from Tallinna Loomeinkubaator / Tallinn Creative Incubator.
Second - EasyTech Companion, which is a home system that serves as both a friend and a helper for the elderly. The team behind this was Tristan Nõmm, Aleks Timm, and Aleksandra Põldroos.
Winning teams earned a study trip to the University of Zagreb / Sveučilište u Zagrebu in the Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) to learn more about how digital technology can help create sustainable and inclusive business innovations.
EBS continually strives to innovate, serving as a breeding ground for ideas, with hackathons being a prime example of this forward-thinking approach.
Jim Seltenrijch comments: “I am super happy to see that for the second year in a row, many students from different programmes and study years came together to hack a problem and propose a business idea to solve this. In my mind this hackathon is a great reflection of what EBS is standing for, combining theory and practice to solve real problems with a community of people. This year was extra special as the first hackathon was designed around helping an existing business and the second hackathon challenged the creative side of the students by proposing business solutions related to active aging. It was again tough to pick the winning teams as we had so many great business ideas and many of these ideas could be easily implemented and create real value. I am proud of all the participants and their hard work and look forward to the next edition!”
