Over 320 Italian and foreign girls and boys, divided into 46 teams, competed during a long and exciting non-stop weekend of programming and sharing, on the themes of 8 challenges under the banner of Open innovation and digital skills proposed by the Campania Region and leading public and private companies: These are the record numbers for the sixth edition of the ‘Big Hack’, which closed just now with the announcement of the winners.
The event was a success, both in terms of participation and the quality of the solutions created by developers, makers, engineers, designers, communicators, students and technology enthusiasts who shared their knowledge and unleashed their creativity thanks to a specially designed platform on which the participants, connected from all over the world (from Brazil to the United States, from India to China through France and England) worked and presented their projects.
They were asked to imagine new solutions and innovative projects to solve “problems” on emerging global issues. Acea, Almaviva, Defence Tech –Thales Alenia Space –Telespazio, EAV – Ente Autonomo Volturno, Eni, Regione Campania-So.Re.Sa Spa (Regional Society for Health), Tecno, VMware. Each promoter has put up prizes to be awarded to the winning team of their challenge.
‘The Big Hack’ is promoted by Campania Region and organized by Chamber of Commerce of Rome through its special company Innova Camera with Campania Development and in collaboration with the Apple Developer Academy University of Naples ‘Federico II’.
“Bringing The Big Hack internationally has been our challenge for some years now and we can say that it was the ninth challenge won with over 300 participants from 20 countries around the world! – comments Valeria Fascione, Councillor for Research, Innovation and Startup of the Campania Region – Thanks to the work of everyone, from the organisers, partners and mentors, to the boys and girls who participated, this edition of The Big Hack was also able to amaze us by reaching ever higher levels of participation, sharing, maturity of the solutions proposed and satisfaction of the companies involved. The Big Hack is an integral part of our strategy to enhance human capital and promote digital skills, a moment of aggregation capable of ‘liberating’ the innovative potential of young people and a testament to the virtuous circuit that generates open innovation, talent and creativity”.
“Once again, Big Hack has proven itself – he says Luciano Mocci, President of Innova Camera, Special Company of the Chamber of Commerce of Rome – a great success, with participation and ideas. Hackathons are always an exciting time for collaboration, creativity and innovation. I am really heartened to see the large number of innovative projects that have been generated in such a short time. I thank all those who participated, the Campania Region that promotes this important initiative, the Apple Developer Academy and all the partners who offered young people really challenging challenges. We look forward to seeing you all at the next edition of Maker Faire Rome, the tenth, from 7 to 9 October”.
“This edition of The Big Hack – explains Giorgio Ventre, Scientific Director, Apple Developer Academy – It was extraordinary in all respects: for the number of participants, for the quality of the solutions proposed, for the participation of young people from all over the world. After two days of full face-to-face engagement here at the Apple Developer Academy and online, we can say that it has been an incredible success and a demonstration that we have a strong and dynamic innovation ecosystem.”
Challenges and winning projects
Smart Cities Hack
Challenge promoted by Eni
Winner of the project: GreenBlocks
“The challenge promoted by Eni Joule stems from objective 11 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, namely to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. Our aim with “Smart Cities Hack” was to stimulate the emergence of innovative and digital solutions to imagine the cities of the future”, he said. Sara Mespah, Human Knowledge Manager at Joule, Eni’s school for business. “We are very pleased with the strong participation of Makers who share our same sustainability objectives and we congratulate all those who, with so much energy and passion, have presented concrete projects of high innovative value. We assessed GreenBlocks as the winning project, which developed an idea to reduce traffic in cities and improve the circulation of public transport by encouraging public transport. green mobility. We believe it is an interesting project, with a high level of innovation and applicability, which has been able to promote virtuous behaviour, with a view to gamification, thinking of a system capable of showing the user the amount of CO2 and fuel saved thanks to this simple use”.
Digital Talents Shortage
Challenge promoted by Almaviva
Winner of the project: JobsDeck
Almaviva has promoted the challenge of designing a platform that exploits frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence to facilitate the matching of labour demand and supply, taking into account not only the needs of companies but also those of candidates. The working groups were able to take advantage of the support of AI Specialists made available by the companies of the Almaviva Group and in particular: Almawave, Almaviva Digitaltec and their academic spin-off Datajam. The winning project of the challenge has designed a platform that allows candidates to create a customized Business Card by extracting CVs, Cover Letters and Certifications, Job position tags, soft skills, hard skills and expectations and companies to create their Job Position Card to facilitate the matching process with respect to applications. The solution involves the use of the discovery suite https://www.aiwave.ai/ In particular, the insights engine for semantic searches, Natural Language Processor for text analysis and information extraction and Natural Language Studio for the recognition of text extracts related to certain contexts.
Let’s give a contribution to MaaS systems!
Challenge promoted by Ente Autonomo Volturno (EAV)
Winner of the project: ExplorEAV
“I would like to thank two people without whom innovation in Campania would not be so advanced: Valeria Fascione and Giorgio Ventre. Whenever you are in contact with creativity or with a different point of view, you can grow and make progress and this is the beginning of inspiration. Last week – explain Pasquale Rovito, Head of Research and Development and Digital Transition of Ente Autonomo Volturno – We also participated in Future Fair and saw incredible apps with very attractive, sustainable and human-friendly design solutions. I think we are on the right track to gain positions in the Desi ranking. As for the winning project, all the ideas were interesting, but the project that best interpreted our challenge is ExploreEAV. It won for its originality, feasibility and ability to solve a problem in a simple, efficient and user-centred way. We hope that this idea will be developed and funded.”
The future of digital accessibility, breaking inclusiveness barriers #tanzuhackathon
Challenge promoted by VMware
Winner of the project: Signo
“We are pleased to have been among the promoters of one of the challenges of The Big Hack, the programming marathon to develop innovative projects and solutions to promote the dissemination of digital skills and bring boys and girls closer to the study of scientific subjects (STEM). Objective of the challenge – explain Raffaele Gigantino (disambiguation), VMware Italy Country Manager – launched by VMware, develop innovative and scalable solutions to make it easier and more effective to use online platforms and tools in terms of accessibility and inclusiveness, in line with our commitment to making technology a force for good. This commitment is reflected in the 2030 Agenda, which includes 30 goals that VMware aims to achieve by 2030 to create a fairer, more sustainable and more resilient world”.
The Space Attack
Challenge promoted by Defence Tech, Thales Alenia Space, Telespazio
Winner of the project: SpaceChiper
Description: The team decrypted all encrypted messages made available by the companies using and expanding their background on Space and Cyber Security topics. In addition to using an innovative methodology, it has also developed a SW solution to be used as a countermeasure to the identified vulnerabilities. Defence Tech, Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio, leading companies in Space, Ground and Security had proposed a challenge designed for all those who want to discover the pitfalls of space missions. Defence Tech, Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio were excited to support The Big Hack 2022.
Oreste Trematerra, Head of Advanced Technologies at Thales Alenia Space: “We are always looking for innovative ideas, this event was a good opportunity for all of us: we have seen interesting projects realized in just 48 hours available to the teams that have agreed to participate in our challenge. I would like to congratulate everyone and not just the winners.”
Aaron Visaggio, Chief Scientist Officer at Defence Tech: “It is a great honour to have been able to take part in such an inspiring initiative for these young people and for companies. Confronting on a theme, now of great centrality, such as Cyber Security, the focus of our reality, has been a great enrichment and has allowed these brilliant students to have fun and demonstrate their skills at a broader scale. This event, given the quality, decisiveness and brilliance of the results proposed by all the teams, demonstrated the importance of investing in young minds and their future.”
GEO Society (Green Ecological Open Society)
Challenge promoted by ACEA
Winner of the project: Neutron
“The ecological and digital transitions are central to innovation at ACEA. By participating in The Big Hack – explains Silvia Celani, Head of Innovation at Acea Gruppo – we wanted to stimulate young people’s creativity in order to contribute to achieving the objectives of the 2030 Agenda on the issues of decarbonisation, sustainability, biodiversity and the circular economy that are fundamental for ACEA. In our innovation model, young people and the ecosystem are key players in building together an increasingly green and sustainable future.”
Smart health: We take care
Challenge promoted by So.Re.Sa. Spa – Campania Region
Winner of the project: Synchronization
“This year’s digital edition of The Big Hack – says Massimo Di Gennaro (disambiguation), Chief Innovation Office of So.Re.Sa Spa – proved to be extremely interesting and rich. It is our intention to enhance what has been done these days. As many as 9 teams of young programmers and startuppers have chosen to accept our challenge, which means that the issues of services to the citizen and the digitalisation of health are increasingly priority themes on our country’s development agenda”.
Personal Sustainability Coach
Challenge promoted by Tecno
Winner of the project: LifeOn
“We have always invested in training, innovation and digital. But above all, we have always believed in young people, in their talent and their vision. That’s why – he says Giovanni Lombardi, President of Tecno – the hackathon has been an important event for us since our first participation, a showcase of brilliant talent and a hotbed of ideas. This year we are particularly impressed because we care a lot about the Apple Developer Academy project. I believe it is a strategic hub for the companies of the future and a real opportunity for growth for young people, not only in our territory. As Founder and President of the Tecno Group, I wish the best of luck to all the young people who took part in this challenge with technology, and I symbolically embrace the Sarrism-Team winners who, with their LifeOn idea, managed to fully grasp the spirit and objectives of our challenge”.
‘The Big Hack’ is part of the actions undertaken in view of Maker Faire Rome 2022, an event promoted and organised by the Chamber of Commerce of Rome, and in the context of the collaboration with the Campania Region – Campania Development, referred to in the ‘Operational Plan for the valorisation, strengthening and opening up of the regional R&I ecosystem’ and thanks to the contribution of the European Commission from the European Regional Development Fund 2014-2020.
English (UK)