From February 28 to March 7, 2022, the Applied Data Hackathon welcomed data scientists with entrepreneurial spirits from multiple backgrounds. Participants tackled three challenges or brought their own, intending to solve some of the most pressing real-world problems we face today.

The satisfaction of coming up with original and inspiring solutions was incentive enough, but to add to the available rewards, the winner and runners-up had the chance to share over €120,000 in prizes and a place at the Applied Data Incubator in Berlin.

Challengers formed 17 teams, creating their solutions throughout the weekend, culminating in a Pitch Day event hosted online and at The Drivery Berlin on March 7.

An all-star judging panel

Joining the event both virtually and in-person, the judges brought a huge amount of experience and knowledge to the table. Selecting the winners were:

• Carla Penedo of Celfocus
• Michael Durst of ITONICS GmbH
• Claudia Pohlink of Deutsche Bahn
• Michael Leyendecker of VITRONIC Machine Vision
• Peter Ummenhofer of GO Consulting GmbH 
• Thomas Brüse of QuickMove GmbH
• Simon Mayer of University of St. Gallen
• Timon Rupp of The Drivery Berlin
• Judith Wiesinger, DeepTech Entrepreneur
• Norbert Herrmann of Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Wirtschaft, Energie und Betriebe 
• Maren Lesche of Applied Data Incubator and Startup Colors

“We already have an incubator in the healthcare field, and I’ve seen the impact that it creates,” Lesche, Founder at Applied Data Incubator said. “There is so much unstructured data around, and we produce, produce, produce, and we don’t even know what to do with it. So I hope that we can empower entrepreneurs and teams to use the available data. This is the reason why I wanted to do it; these hundred hackers that registered for the hackathon can help to shape the future.”

Pitch it to win it

Of the 17 teams that entered, nine presented their solutions during Pitch Day, intending to win those coveted places at the Applied Data Incubator.

The first pitch tackled a problem that will become significant as more electric trucks take to the roads.

Hyperfleet supports logistics with a data-driven multi-variant decision model for order taking and fleet route optimization, helping organizations make decisions that improve their total cost of ownership and the environment.

Three projects tackled an expensive problem. AI Anomaly Detector, Archimedes, and MoveQuickly all created an intelligent anomaly detector for industrial applications, assisting with the predictive maintenance of costly and critical machinery to ensure they stay up and running.

Panos.AI is a digital advisor that helps companies identify, manage and scale their process automation initiatives more successfully, powered by data-driven, self-learning algorithms.

Hyperspace analyzes scientific papers and news articles to extract insights about emerging technology milestones and breakthroughs.

Composite Vision is an automated system for detecting particular types of defects in data acquired by non-destructive testing, such as ultrasound, x-ray, and more.

ClearCO2 maps the cause and effect of carbon emissions in food production and logistics to reverse climate change.

Kapsola empowers health tech companies to label data for use in their AI applications, providing them with services like image classification, object detection, semantic segmentation, and more.

And the winner is?

After a great deal of discussion, the judges selected their winners, with the results appearing for all participants and interested attendees on the Applied Data Hackathon portal, powered by Taikai.

Hyperfleet, Composite Vision, Panos.AI, ClearCO2, Kapsola, Hyperspace, and AI Anomaly Detector all won the opportunity to go through the eligibility criteria process and join Applied Data Incubator either in April or October 2022.

And the winner of the €500 Conference Voucher is MoveQuickly, with Archimedes taking home four hours of special coaching, worth €400.

It was a challenging but fantastic and inspiring week. And it was wonderful to see so many participants, both in-person in Berlin and online.

Congratulations to all the hackathon participants and the partners, mentors, judges, and organizing team for making it all possible.