Innovative solutions in environmental protection

Ten innovative solutions in environmental protection were presented at the end of the student Think Green hackathon held from 13 to 15 April 2022, in the Science and Technology Park Belgrade.

The three-day event was attended by more than 45 students, divided into 10 multidisciplinary teams, who created solutions to 6 challenges in the field of environmental protection: from agricultural, recyclable and high-value waste management, to charger monitoring for electric vehicles and balancing production and electricity consumption.

On the first day of the hackathon, the teams were assigned challenges with a description of the problem, and the students then had 48 hours to create their own solutions consisting of technical work and market needs. The solutions were presented on the last day of the hackathon before the jury, which selected the three teams that best responded to the challenges.

The goal of the Think Green Hackathon is to motivate students to think about ecology and green technologies, as well as to get acquainted with the basics of technological entrepreneurship and the ways in which it can solve global challenges.

Students worked on the development of innovative solutions with the support of 15 mentors and had the opportunity to hear lectures on current environmental trends in the world, the development of innovative businesses and experiences from global hackathons.

The award for the best solution went to the TerraWatt team, who proposed a solution for the development of an intelligent metering and control system on the electricity grid, which can be used to predict electricity consumption by electricity traders. The second place went to the Wastelocate team for the proposed platform to improve the agricultural waste management cycle and connect farmers with agricultural waste processors, while third place went to Otpadium for an application to establish communication between farmers and agricultural waste collectors.

All three teams get the opportunity to continue the development of the business idea with expert support, i.e., an innovative solution developed during the hackathon. As a reward, the teams winning the first and the second place will receive a multi-day study visit to the European Innovation Capital 2020, Leuven in Belgium, and the third-placed team is provided with valuable literature in the field of innovative business development and startups.

The student Think Green hackathon was organized within the project "EU support to the Science and Technology Park Belgrade for services to innovative companies", while part of the awards was provided through the project "Pulse of Europe – Media Trips to the EU". Both projects are funded by the European Union.