On May 25-26, hundreds of Europe’s best and brightest coders, hackers, tech makers and programmers will descend upon Paris, the City of Light, to take part in TechCrunch Hackathon at VivaTech. And, as if a €5,000 grand prize weren’t enticing enough, our sponsors keep adding contests and prizes. More on that in a minute, but first a reminder. Tickets are free but you must register, so sign up today.
If you’re not familiar with the TechCrunch Hackathon format, listen up. When you arrive, you’ll connect with hundreds of other like-minded techies and form ad-hoc teams. Using BeMyApp, the official Hackathon platform, teams have just 24 hours to plan, design and create something amazing. Then those sleep-deprived teams have a mere 60 seconds to pitch their products to a panel of Hackathon judges. It’s grueling, feverish fun — often fueled by frightening quantities of Red Bull, sugar, pizza and coffee.
Oh, and those judges assign each team a score between one and five. Every team that scores an average three or better wins five tickets to Viva Technology 2019 and two tickets to TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin 2018 in November. That’s a sweet deal.
OK, we promised you an update on new contests and prizes. In addition to the €5,000 overall grand prize and another €5,000 for the contest sponsored by leboncoin, we’re thrilled to announce these contests from Renault, GEFCO and Microsoft:
Groupe Renault is developing safe and smooth driving technology to offer trustful Autonomous Driving on mainstream vehicles. This technology aims at making road safer, more enjoyable and maximize time for drivers while delegating. We’re challenging hackers to help us shape the future of Autonomous Vehicle by inventing innovative onboard and offboard services that will contribute to bring new experiences to customers and cars. The best hack project featuring onboard and offboard services will be awarded €5,000.
GEFCO is challenging our hackers to create the car auto-maintenance service of tomorrow by developing a system that will enable cars (or drivers) to request maintenance services directly from the car to GEFCO’s suppliers. Solutions can range from a “dash button” for the final customer to signal issues and an AI predictive maintenance system, to a gamification system allowing the final customer to manage car repair evaluations to self-managed parking. The best car auto-maintenance hack will be awarded €5,000.
Microsoft is inviting hackers to join one of 9 AI for good projects: 2 health projects and 7 existing social good projects in collaboration with the Station F’s Tech for Good accelerator: ShareIT.IO. The 7 projects are around gender equality, natural disasters, health, education, refugees, and civic rights. They are looking for talented developers and AI engineers to collaborate with them to have a social impact with their contribution. Microsoft will select one of these projects and the winners will receive technical support from the Software Engineering teams of Microsoft to continue working on the project and each member of that team will receive a Microsoft Surface. You can find a brief description of these projects below:
- Hopale foundation Highly specialised in the treatment of neurological and osteo-articular conditions, disabilities, chronic conditions and learning and behavioural disorders.
- G.H Pitié Salpêtrière Therapeutic education project in pneumology.
- Learn Enjoy Learn Enjoy works to keep children with autism in the educational system, using the Internet and new technologies.
- Social Builder Social Builder is an organization whose mission is to develop gender diversity and professional equality in the digital economy.
- Droit d’Urgence Droits d’Urgence works for access to the law, at the heart of the causes of exclusion in France.
- Equal Community Foundation ECF implements programs to educate young Indian boys about gender equality and respect for women.
- Hackers Against Natural Disasters H.A.N.D. is an association whose goal is to use new technologies to prepare people for natural disasters.
- Singa SINGA is working on the integration of socio-economic integration of refugees by creating spaces for dialogue and meetings between refugees and their host society.
- We are not weapons of war We are not Weapons of War (WWoW) is an NGO founded by Céline Bardet, an international jurist who fights for the recognition of rape as a weapon of war in the strategic sense of the word.
Full disclosure: there’s only one qualification bar to clear before you can hack in Paris. All participants in this Hackathon must be a resident of one of these European countries.
TechCrunch Hackathon at VivaTech takes place on May 25-26, 2018 at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. Don’t miss your chance to put your tech mettle to the test and come home with some pretty awesome cash and prizes. Register for your free ticket today.
