Challenge Accepted COVIDHACK

An event that is bringing together experts from prestigious IT companies, mentors with a vast experience from The Informal School of IT, developers, software architects, some of our own students and young entrepreneurs, in order to create (in maximum 48 hours) functional prototypes of software applications.

Three projects designed to help fight coronavirus receive incubation through the hackathon of the Informal School of IT- Challenge Accepted

The Challenge Accepted Hacakthon, the traditional event of the Informal School of IT, organized in partnership with the BCR Business Accelerator – InnovX & Google Digital Workshop, announces the three winning projects of the virtual marathon that took place exclusively online between May 8-10. The jury, made up of specialists with extensive experience in IT and representatives of the organizers, chose the 3 winners of the competition, who will benefit from the incubation from a total fund of 10,000 euros made available through the BCR-InnovX Accelerator.
The event was dedicated exclusively to software solutions that can help fight the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current situation was seen by the organizers as an opportunity to innovate, without losing, however, the dynamism and connections that are usually formed in a hackathon. Moving the event to the virtual environment had the effect of opening access for foreign citizens, so that this edition had 270 participants from 8 countries.

In the first place came the project “Visual recognition of people with masks”. The purpose of the application is to support companies when resuming work at the office or in the factory, through software that uses artificial intelligence to identify, in real time, whether or not people in a CCTV mask wear a mask. Moreover, the software can recognize whether the mask is worn correctly or not, with great accuracy, and can issue warnings to remedy the situation.

The “Managing workspaces” project ranked second. The proposed objective was to help office owners (in the first phase) to restructure their workspace according to the safety rules provided by law, in terms of social distancing and creating an environment that provides safety and trust to employees. The developed platform is easy to use, automating the whole process, through a mix of artificial intelligence and data input from knowledgeable people.

On the third place was the project “Online platform for volunteers”, proposed by a representative of the Association “Merciful Samaritan” from Suceava. Their mission was to develop an application in which to centralize all volunteering opportunities in the country, from any NGO that carries out actions in which the involvement of volunteers can! useful. The developed platform encourages young people to actively participate as volunteers in various actions of Romanian NGOs, obtaining ratings, reviews, opinions summed up in points (hero, superhero and titanium level), which they can value as later in their CV.

The Challenge Accepted CODVidHack experience has shown us through authentic personal examples that it is important to trust “thought and coded in Romania”. We will continue to support a new stage of “implemented and sold in Romania”, this hackathon, continuing the efforts made in the BCR-InnovX Accelerator to support the Romanian ecosystem of start-ups. Agility, common goal and collaboration between diverse communities, between corporations and start-ups are the ingredients that have brought us so close in these two days and that have proved essential to the success of this event. We are grateful to the over 270 people from over 8 countries who were with us during this hackathon organized with attention to detail by our trusted partners from the Informal School of IT and Google Digital Workshop “, said Ana Maria Cretu, Manager BCR Start-up Programs.

“We look forward to supporting this initiative and contributing to efforts to reduce the impact of COVID-19. We believe that technology plays an important role in finding practical solutions that will help overcome the challenges we face. CODVidHack is a good opportunity for innovation, and proof that beautiful things are happening when people are united and communities come together. ” says Dan Oros, Head of Marketing, Google Romania.
“It’s amazing that we were able to bring together such a large number of people passionate about IT, eager to fight together against COVID-19. We are proud that we managed to break down the barriers imposed by distance and we used technology to the fullest for the common good. An incredible atmosphere and synergy was created, intense work was done on projects with the component of AI, machine learning, IoT and multi-platform. ” said Răzvan Voica, Co-founder of the Informal School of IT.

How did the event go?

On Friday, May 8, the coding marathon started. Challengers, 23 in number, presented their ideas for applications that could help combat the problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The organizers, the Informal School of IT, decided to accept “challenges” and focus the fight on three fronts: Save lives, Save Communities and Save Businesses.
The challenges came from NGOs, individuals, start-ups and doctors. The team coagulation stage followed – 18 of the 23 ideas presented managed to arouse the interest of the 270 participants – programmers, testers, business analysts and UX designers. Then, they met the mentors, who made sure that they were working on the most important functionalities and that the team members did not lose their focus during the marathon.

Saturday, May 9, was the day of superhuman efforts. We went from concept to prototype and from prototype to lines of code. Intense discussions, exchange of experience and a lot, a lot of work – this is how the second day of the coding marathon could be summarized. Participants are tired, but do not give up, they know that the solutions generated will come to the aid of those who fight the virus on the front line, people isolated in homes, with limited access to resources and small and medium businesses affected by the pandemic. It is worth mentioning that four of the 18 accepted projects also used artificial intelligence, two of them even ranking first.
On Sunday, May 10, the participants and mentors made the last tests and adjustments, so that their solution is as close as possible to! usable. The coding marathon ended with a sprint, in which each team had 5 minutes to present their project. Subsequently, the three winning projects were announced. All the winning teams will receive prizes from the Informal School of IT, BCR-InnovX, Google and APDETIC.

More details about Challenge Accepted COVIDHACK.a