First, we invited Petri Alava from Infinited Fiber Company (Finland) as an inspirational speaker to the participants. The purpose of Infinited Fiber Company is to be the driving force in revolutionizing the fashion industry, by developing a process technology that can turn cotton rich textile waste into new fibers for the textile industry. Madis Tilga, bioeconomy adviser of the Nordic Council of Ministers´office in Estonia participated in the event as a mentor for the contestants.
Watch an aftermovie:
During the hackathon, 8 teams were formed and 8 ideas in the fields of bioeconomy and biomedicine developed during these 2 days with the help of mentors.
The 2nd day ended with all the teams pitching their ideas to the international jury. Altogether 6 awards were given out to the participants helping them to develop their ideas further.
Team StimulAid, aiming to develop a medical neurostimulator to help Parkinson’s patients improve their balance and mobility, was awarded with EIT-Health Summer school travel grant in the value of 2500 euros and Free consultancy from Tartu Biotechnology Science park.
Team MediKeep, developing a personalized medicine app to help people make more individualized health related decisions (e.g about drugs, nutrition, lifestyle and prevention suggestions) based on their genomic data, was also awarded with EIT-Health Summer school travel grant in the value of 2500 euros.
Team Urban Vertical Farming, aiming to take empty apartement buildings in rural regions into use for growing agricultural products indoors using the newest technologies available got ERASMUS for Young Entrepreneurs scolarship in the value of 3300 euros.
Team Milky Waste, developing a user friendly and customizable equipment to the dairy companies, which can use it directly to produce biomethane and other valuable substances from the wastewaters of the dairy industry processes, got tickets to the sTARTUp Day 2019.
And finally a special award, which is all-expenses paid trip to Japan to attend the NELIS Global Summit, was awarded to Lea Urpa from University of Helsingi and from team Urban Vertical Farming, who demonstrated exceptional leadership skills during the event.