Over the next two and a half years, the Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society will be holding a special series of events to raise awareness of start-ups and bring together students from a wide range of disciplines at Rhineland-Palatinate universities who are interested and willing to start a business. The "iHack RLP - University Start-up Hackathon on Infrastructure" project, which is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Transport, Agriculture and Viticulture (MWVLW), will receive almost €240,000.
A hackathon is a collaborative development event with an IT focus. The aim is to define useful, creative and innovative products or processes together in cross-functional student teams within a tight timeframe of two to three days. To this end, the teams work on solutions to real problems ("challenges") posed by companies. The iHack RLP Start-up Hackathons expand this approach by focusing on the resulting start-up ideas and also addressing participants from other disciplines.
At the three planned events, challenges will be defined by Rhineland-Palatinate companies in coordination with the Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society. The common theme of all events is public infrastructure. "We want to focus on a particularly topical and practically relevant area at each event. We will therefore be addressing challenges from the fields of energy, the environment and mobility," says the project manager of the event series, Prof. Dr. Marcus Sidki.
The student teams should come from all Rhineland-Palatinate universities and present their solutions in the form of "business cases" to a jury made up of representatives from companies, associations and universities as well as representatives from the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The winners can look forward to lucrative prizes and, above all, support in the further pursuit of their start-up ideas from the universities' funding institutions and the participating companies. "The event format opens up great opportunities to further promote start-up activity from the universities in Rhineland-Palatinate and to strengthen the innovative power in the state," says Sidki. The first hackathon will start in fall 2019.
Specialist contact:
Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society
Center for Research & Cooperation
Prof. Dr. Marcus Sidki
Scientific Director
Ernst-Boehe-Str. 4
67509 Ludwigshafen
Tel. 0621/5203-558
Email: marcus.sidki@ 8< SPAM protection, please remove >8 hwg-lu.de
