Top three hackathon prizes awarded to teams from Poland, Azerbaijan and Brazil

Baku, 13 April 2020 - Azerbaijan’s first global virtual hackathon was held this weekend, organised by the country’s Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies together with UNDP and SUP.VC, bringing together over 600 applicants from over 40 countries across the world to come up with ideas and solutions to help people cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The participants were grouped into 25 teams and worked together on the following solutions:

Team #1 ‘DF19’ from Brazil developed an interactive map of COVID-19 cases in Brazil’s Federal District to help people avoid potential risk areas.

Team #2 ‘CoughFree’ from Norway worked on cough detection using deep neural networks.

Team #3 ‘Zebrafish’ from Brazil was developing a rapid kit that speeds up the detection of COVID-19 antigens with the help of zebrafish.

Team #4 from Pakistan focused on immunotourism, a new concept for the post-pandemic tourism industry.

Team #5 ‘Healthcare’ from Ukraine worked on a digital platform that connects healthcare institutions with the public.

Team #6 ‘Javid-19’ from Azerbaijan worked on a project to help support SMEs through a voucher scheme allowing people in isolation to buy goods and services in advance at a discount.

Team #7 ‘Robot Nurse’ from Turkey worked on a mobile robot to help hospital nurses, including the distribution of medicine and the processing of routine tests such as checking blood pressure, tension, fever and oxygen levels.

Team #8 ‘Kids Mask’ from United Kingdom worked on designing reusable N95 face-masks for children that can be 3-D printed at home.

Team #9 ‘Khalmax Robotics’ from India focused on testing the ability of UV rays to be used as lamps for disinfecting offices and homes.

Team #10 ‘X-RAY’ from Greece developed an application that can diagnose COVID-19 from X-ray chest scans.

Team #11 ‘Crisis Heroes’ from Poland developed a virtual marketplace matching people and organizations which can help each other during the pandemic crisis.

Team #12 ‘Nanomed’ from Turkey focused on developing a mobile biosensor for COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment.

Team #13 ‘Waternizer’ from Ukraine focused on the production of pocket-size devices for rapidly turning water into sanitizer.

Team #14 ‘DataCovid’ from Brazil developed a tool to help inform and alert public health services about specific vulnerabilities in healthcare capacities.

Team #15 ‘HelpAround’ from Azerbaijan was working on a program to help speed up diagnostic technologies.

Team #16 ‘DonorUA’ from Ukraine developed a tech service enabling blood donors to book and order free taxis from their homes to local blood banks.

Team #17 ‘Covid-Bot’ from Netherlands worked on a smart chatbot to provide trustworthy and readable responses to users’ questions about COVID-19.

Team #18 ‘VoiceMed’ from Estonia was working on an easy-to-use AI check-up-recognition tool, allowing people to check the probability of their being infected by providing voice and cough samples using their smart phone mics.

Team #19 ‘Octopi’ from Azerbaijan focused on exploring ways to help people working in industry to gain new skills while staying at home.

Team #20 ‘CardioAI’ from Ukraine focused on remote ECG-monitoring, enabling safe and affordable care and high-quality analysis for people in their own homes and thus easing the pressure on healthcare services.

Team #21 ‘E-traveling’ from Israel will offer people worldwide a new way of experiencing travel from their living rooms.

Team #22 ‘Fight Pandemic’ from Brazil explored new ways to warn and inform the public at risk and collect anonymous replies through a special geosurvey feature built for COVID-19.

Team #23 ‘CoronaCheck’ from Turkey focused on developing an AI model to help speed up diagnosis of COVID-19 based on X-Ray and CT data.

Team #24 ‘E-museums’ from North Macedonia will develop a platform for people to visit museums virtually during the pandemic.

Team #25 ‘MusicCovid’ from Nigeria set up an entertaining and educational online music programme to stimulate and motivate people during the pandemic.

The jury, composed of international and national innovation experts and practitioners, had a difficult task selecting the winning applications.

 After careful deliberation they decided to award:

The first prize (5,000 USD) to Team #11 “Crisis Heroes’ from Poland for developing a virtual marketplace matching people and organizations which can help each other during the pandemic crisis.

The second prize (3,000 USD) to Team #6 ‘Javid-19’ from Azerbaijan for their idea to help support SMEs through a voucher scheme allowing people in isolation to buy goods and services in advance at a discount.

And the third prize (2,000 USD) to Team #3 ‘Zebrafish’ from Brazil for their work on a rapid kit that speeds up the detection of COVID-19 antigens with the help of zebrafish.

Over the coming weeks, the three winning teams will be working together with mentors to bring their ideas and solutions to life.

Numerous national partners and sponsors joined the hackathon, including Pasha Bank, Socar AQS, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, the Ministry of Education, the Women’s Committee on Family, Women and Children Affairs, ABAD, Azerbaijan Tourism Board and State Tourism Agency, the Public Health and Reforms Center of the Ministry of Health, AzCloud and AzInTelecom, and Data Processing Center.

International partners and sponsors included Amazon WES, European Startup Network, Startup Grind, Hackquarters, Tekwill, Astana Hub, Fongogo, Silicon Valley In Your Pocket, Start-IST, MeOut and Startup Weekend.