The sixth edition of the Smart City Challenge hackathon took place this past weekend in the SPINIT incubator. As the name suggests, Smart City Challenge is a hackathon whose focus is the development of technological solutions based on IoT and smart technologies that have applications in the local community.

The Smart City Challenge hackathon is an event where students, developers, entrepreneurs, and designers interested in making their city a better place can gather in multidisciplinary teams that jointly build innovative smart solutions.

This year’s edition of the Smart City Challenge hackathon gathered over 40 participants divided into 10 different teams.

They were all tasked with developing smart city solutions within some of the offered categories: smart housing, smart healthcare, smart environment, smart production, smart tourism, global transportation and transport, smart citizens, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

In addition to already established categories, this year the City of Split also set a special challenge: solving stormwater problems through the implementation of IoT technology.

The Smart City Challenge hackathon officially started on Saturday at 9 AM. Its first part, dedicated to working on and developing the projects, lasted until Sunday at 12 pm.

To enable the contestants to develop their solutions as well as possible – from the initial idea to an actually viable project – mentors with business and technical backgrounds gave the contestants additional guidance by sharing their knowledge and skills during two mentoring sessions.

Sunday at 1 PM was reserved for the beginning of the project presentation session. Each team had 5 minutes to present their project to the expert jury.

The following projects were presented:

1. Evala – a digital tourist guide; an application based on the concept of storytelling to convey the tourist experience
2. TIID – improvement of the Passenger Information System in public transport with the integration of various data from the domain of smart mobility
3. ProMili – a platform for cross-promotion of the offer of local autochthonous products
4. Travel Node – an application and social network for digital nomads to facilitate finding a place to live, work, and connect with professionals of a similar profile
5. Green Team 2 – solving communal problems in the environment within urban areas by applying deep learning methods
6. FlexGRID – system for decentralization of electricity production and distribution
7. Maximum Level – IoT system for monitoring the level of rainwater on public roads while signaling potential routes to avoid congestion caused by poor water infrastructure
8. Smart Locker – a system for efficient storage and protection of private belongings on public beaches; a locker with RFID reader and lock
9. SmartNest – IoT system for the optimization of poultry farming, egg production, and reduction of producer labor costs

The first three places were won by the teams SmartNest, Green Team 2, and FlexGRID.

These best teams distributed the prize fund provided by the City of Split.

The SmartNest team won HRK 12,000.00, the Green Team 2 earned HRK 7,000.00, and the FlexGRID team took home HRK 3,000.00. The funds the teams won at the Smart City Challenge hackathon will be used for further development of their respective smart city solutions.

The expert jury consisted of:

• Ivana Čuljak, COO of Invento Capital Partners & EIT Urban Mobility
• Suren Markosian, CEO of Epic!
• Vedrana Franić, authorized head of the Service for the Development of the City of Split

In addition to the competitive part, during the Smart City Challenge hackathon a workshop for young people was held in cooperation with the association Jedna Mladost.

This helped the young workshop participants acquire knowledge and skills in the field of IoT technologies using the example of smart home and car models. The workshop was held by Slaven Damjanović from the company Field Data, which stands behind the successful brands Glamos and eAgrar.

The Smart City Challenge hackathon was organized by the Split Entrepreneurship Center and the Student Business Incubator of the Faculty of Economics in Split in partnership with the Faculty of Science and Mathematics and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture through projects financed by the Croatian Science Foundation.

Support for the organization of the hackathon was provided by the City of Split, OTP Banka d.d., Infokarta d.o.o., and dobartek.hr. The Smart City Challenge hackathon took place as part of the Smart Youth project financed by the European Solidarity Corps of the European Union.

We wish a lot of future success to the top three teams as well as all the other teams working hard to make our city smart!

Photo credit: Student Business Incubator