Hack Fest took place in Mannheim last weekend. 48 hour hackathon The aim of the organising hackathon company was to develop sustainable ideas in six coding challenges to reduce COâ‚‚ emissions under the motto “Decarbonise the Planet”. Around 300 developers from 53 countries participated, and around 700 more people attended the public visitor event.
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At the inauguration on 6 September, the perspective also extended beyond the blue planet. The challengers were the customers – the city of Mannheim with the local Green Deal as well as the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region, SAP, Schwarz IT, KION Group and Roche – as well as Mannheim mayor Christian Specht, Bundestag member Anna Christmann and ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst present.
Climate protection for future generations
(Image: Myka Mobus)
In an interview with Oliver Brummer, CEO of the hackathon company, Gerst provided exciting insights into his career as an astronaut and emphasized the importance of climate protection. His message to his grandchildren was recorded on the International Space Station, in which he apologized for humanity’s climate-damaging behavior with the Earth. On stage, Gerst took on a more serious tone, as it was not just climate-related phenomena such as forest fires that could be seen from space. In particular, it was hard to bear when, looking at a bright glowing point on Earth, the realization dawned: This is war.
When Brummer’s final question was whether climate challenges could be overcome, he was positive: People are inventive – and he is an optimist. ESA also focuses on sustainability, for example, in January 2023 ESA Green Agenda was brought into existence.
Challenges for energy-efficient LLM use, circular economy and waste reduction
The Hack Festival featured a 48-hour hackathon.
(Image: Hackathon Company)
The results of the coding challenge are also optimistic: during the 48 hours of the hackathon, the participants – of whom around 30 percent were women – came together in around 40 teams to tackle six challenges. The winning ideas were awarded prize money totalling 15,000 euros. The challenges focused on topics such as reducing and recycling food waste, reducing CO₂ emissions in the food sector and working life, and the efficient use of LLMs (large language models) to save energy. The winning ideas include an app for refrigerator management using image recognition, the development of energy-efficient LLMs, and an app to impart knowledge to children in a playful way.
Start-up funding aims to increase diversity
As part of the Hack Festival, among other things, the Federal Government Coordinator for Aerospace and the Digital Economy and Climate Protection’s representative for start-ups, Anna Christmann, was confident that the hackathon ideas could possibly also lead to new start-ups. In connection with this, she announced in the interview that the Federal Government WITH EXIST-Women Initiative In particular, EXIST would like to increase the female founder rate from the current around 20 percent. is present This is a funding program of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection for starting scientific businesses.
(May)
Developer Community Conference in Essen on September 27 and 28, 2024
