Business and Investment Development Agency

Hack the Crisis Czech Republic

Hack the Crisis Czech Republic

Hack the Crisis! With this motto, we launched the biggest and longest state-sponsored hackathon in the history of the Czech Republic in April 2020. We thus ranked among the countries, such as Poland, Estonia and Germany, that decided to fight against the coronavirus pandemic. The winning projects shared prize money in the amount of CZK 10 million, which Hyundai donated to the competition.

Hack the Crisis Czech Republic was a two-month virtual hackathon organised by CzechInvest together with the Ministry of Industry and Trade in spring 2020 during the first wave of the global coronavirus pandemic. Its purpose was to coordinate the needs of the state with the energy and volunteering found in the IT community and the business environment and to thus support the implementation of relevant projects that can provide assistance in the crisis situation or mitigate its impacts. A total of 206 projects were entered in the hackathon in the course of its duration. Over fifty partners from the public and private sectors also took part in the event. Free mentoring was provided by more than 130 experts in various fields.

Thanks to unique cooperation between the public, private and academic spheres, it was possible to provide assistance to 108 projects, of which the expert jury selected the best fifteen. Those projects’ representatives advanced to the final and battled for overall supremacy and financial awards on 22 June 2020.

Of the fifteen finalists, the largest number of projects (ten in total) were focused on the field of healthcare. These included LAM-X (active nanofiltres against  COVID-19), CoroVent, COVIDI, Daruju Krev, Diana Biotechnologies, MedRec AI, Oxygenerátor, a portable device for medical diagnostics, the Virtual Lab application and Virus Deflector. Four projects – namely FreMEn, Grey Cortex, Hunter Games and Kaleido – addressed social issues and the related topics of awareness, communication, isolation, security and logistics. The fifteenth finalist was the Corrency project in the area of economics.

Results of Hack the Crisis

  • First place, prize in the amount of CZK 3,000,000: DIANA Biotechnologies
  • Second place, prize in the amount of CZK 2,000,000: CoroVent
  • Third place, prize in the amount of CZK 1,000,000: Active nanofiltres against COVID-19
  • Five projects received a special prize in the amount of CZK 700,000: Grey Cortex, Oxygenerátor, Kaleido, Hunter Games and FreMEn contra COVID
  • Prize of the public voting on social networks: DIANA Biotechnologies

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