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Winners of EU Covid-19 ‘hackathon’ reap rewards

Extra €150m also found to support pandemic response through European Innovation Council

An EU ‘hackathon’ event intended to help tackle the Covid-19 pandemic attracted more than 20,900 participants and over 2,150 ideas, of which 117 have been declared winners and some received thousands of euros in prizes.

Winning solutions among six categories, announced on 30 April, included a “highly scalable patient monitoring system that minimises the need for physical contact between nurses and patients” from a Hungarian team as well as a sewer surveillance platform for early virus detection submitted by a team from Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.

“The #EUvs Virus Hackathon brought together 114 nationalities and many different areas of expertise from across the EU and the world, united in their desire to offer their time, talent and ideas to help find solutions to the coronavirus crisis,” said EU R&D Commissioner Mariya Gabriel.

“This was just the beginning. With the support of the European Innovation Council and all of the partners involved in the Hackathon, I look forward to the transformation of these fantastic ideas into reality for the betterment of all.”

A jury selected winners on the basis of factors including impact potential, scalability and novelty. Monetary prizes were awarded to some winners by industry sponsors, and the European Commission said that more than €100,000 has been pledged.

On the same day the winners were announced, the Commission said that an additional €150 million had been allocated to a recent funding call from the European Innovation Council, a pilot EU innovation funder, “to support game-changing innovations to tackle the coronavirus crisis”.

The money comes on top of the €164m originally allocated to the call. More than 4,000 companies applied in March, of which over 1,000 proposed innovations related to the coronavirus, the Commission said. Applicants who made it through remote evaluation are being invited for interviews in May.