More than 53 online Hack the Crisis hackathons have taken place around the World since the first one in Estonia on March 13-15. Inspired by the global #hackthecrisis movement, we have launched an online pre-accelerator to help teams coming from these hackathons continue their work and maximize the impact.
While the first teams are being onboarded on our online platform this week, we are happy to announce that our efforts are supported by impact investors and organisations such as the EFSE Entrepreneurship Academy and Slovakian philanthropist Boris Zeleny providing the program with a cash prize pool of 17K EUR.
Entrepreneurship Academy will be granting 2 prizes of 6K EUR each for the most promising solutions in the Western Balkan and Eastern Europe region, whereas Boris Zeleny will grant a prize of 5K EUR to the most promising solution without a particular geographical scope.
15+ teams have already been selected from Hack the Crisis hackathons around Europe by jury and will start the pre-accelerator program shortly. However, to expand the reach of this impact, we are launching a 72h “window of opportunity” and opening the applications to any team from hackathons or not, working on a COVID crisis related solutions and in need of business basics and structured mentoring support.
Teams can apply by 10AM EET April 10 online here.
As you already might know, just a week after the lockdown of all 3 Baltic countries due to Corona virus threats, this region took its tech-savviness to new heights, launching a positive snow-ball effect all over Europe and beyond running Online Hackathons to tackle COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath. This week the efforts are reaching new heights with The Global Hack taking place all over the World online April 9-12 and driven by Estonian tech ecosystem leaders.
Our team took active part in the first 3 “Hack the Crisis” hackathons, helped organise more than 5 follow-up hackathons, along with enthusiasts from Latvian startup ecosystem we are running the Economics track of the Global Hack, and now we have launched a dedicated online pre-accelerator to help selected teams from these and other online crisis hackathons to ensure their continued impact and viability. We hope that this program will also become a platform for mentors and other supporters, who have jumped on the hackathon train, to continue working with the teams.
As the program is just starting, we do not intend to stop just there and are continuing our search for additional cash prizes and funding opportunities for startups having such needed impact to tackle the current crisis. If you want to get on board, do reach out to us and let’s fix this together!