Hack the Crisis, Luxembourg’s first online hackathon, took place during 24 hours over the past weekend and enabled the creation of 33 solutions to fight the COVID-19 crisis.

The initiative, organised by Farvest, the House of Startups (powered by the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce), Junction and Docler Holding in cooperation with fifteen other partners, brought together 200 participants, 60 mentors and thirteen jury members. A fundraiser was also set up and the event managed to raise €15,000 for the Fondation du Grand-Duc et de la Grande-Duchesse, which will reallocate the funds to organisations bolstering digital inclusion. 

Karoly Papp, CEO of Docler Holding, commented: “We were happy to have twice the number of attendees and mentors we aimed for. We were also impressed by the symbolic number of nineteen partners joining us for this first Luxembourg online hackathon to fight COVID-19 and its consequences. In addition, we are delighted to support the Fondation du Grand-Duc et de la Grande-Duchesse that will provide phones to children impacted by domestic violence through Femmes en Détresse and will give laptops to university students in need”. 

The jury included: Philippe Linster, CEO of House of Startups; Diane Tea, Vice President of the Luxembourg Business Angel Network; Serge Linckels, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Education; Dr. Sergio Coronado, Founder and Lead Coach of Luxembourg Tech School ASBL; Xavier Buck, renowned entrepreneur; Anouar Adlani, CIO of NameSpace Group; Carlos Gonser, Engineering Manager at Docler Holding; Gilbert Wolter, Sales and Marketing Director at Foyer; Kolos Kaszaly, CTO of Docler Holding; Pascal Steichen, CEO of SECURITYMADEIN.LU; Petrus Holm, CEO of Junction; Philippe Majerus, Director of Fondation du Grand-Duc et de la Grande-Duchesse; and Stefan Berend, Head of Start-up Acceleration at Luxinnovation.

Kamel Amroune, CEO of Farvest, stated: “We are used to tech events, but we never expected to have such an impressive online tech event. Amongst the participants, we counted over 44 different nationalities. Once again, we proved that when we work together, technology is a key element to help us all thrive and show solidarity; to educate and to shape the future; to save lives, communities, social interaction and businesses".

Philippe Linster, CEO of House of Startups and President of the Jury, added: "The turnout and the results of this first online hackathon held in Luxembourg through these difficult times were outstanding. Therefore, we sincerely hope that many of these projects will capitalize on the momentum provided by this hackathon, the mentors or the partners’ special rewards to evolve into startups".

A total of 33 projects were submitted through Slack, thanks to the support of the Finnish based hackathon experts, Junction. The 24-hour event was officially launched and livestreamed on Facebook on Friday, with an introduction by Carlo Thelen, CEO of the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce. The awards ceremony took place the next day and presented the top ten projects. Five winners were selected.

The "Save Lives" category winner, EmailTree AI for Healthcare communities, received its award from Pascal Steichen. The winners won Gartners’ prize consisting of one pass for Gartner Symposium Barcelona and two months of Agile support to develop the project. This project was proposed by a Luxembourg-based startup and offers healthcare professionals or communities the possibility to connect with their peers using machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).

The "Save Education" category winner, PeerTutor, was created by students from Luxembourg, who won EURODNS’s prize: a €500 voucher for their tutoring platform made for students to share knowledge easily. The award was handed out by Dr. Sergio Coronado.

SuperHeld won the "Save Communities and Social Interaction" category with an application to connect vulnerable people in need of assistance with volunteers. The app would help facilitate essential services such as picking up groceries, going to pharmacies or sending post, for instance. The team won a spot in one of Nyuko’s programmes including individual and group coaching. The prize was virtually handed out by Diane Tea. 

An app to improve the shopping experience won the "Save Businesses" category: Time2Shop. Xavier Buck presented the award. This app gives details about queues in supermarkets and shops and suggests the best time frames for its users to go shopping. The team won a one-month use of flex desk from Luxembourg-City Incubator. 
Using e-thinking, S@afeOffice developed the concept of the open office and created an application that adopts the lessons learned during the COVID-19 crisis into a hot desk and smart office solution.

Last but not least, the “Think about Tomorrow” category winners won a €500 voucher from EURODNS, which was presented by Kolos Kaszaly.

All the winners also received a one-year exclusive VIP Luxembourg-China Chamber of Commerce membership.