EIT Community innovators win in EUvsVirus Hackathon

Two EIT Community supported teams were among the winners of the EUvsVirus Hackathon organised by the European Commission. Solutions will keep frontline workers safe and keep supply chains running.

Team Discover: supported by EIT Digital

A team of five EIT Digital Master School students from Hungary, calling themselves ‘Team Discover’, came top in the Health & Life category of the EUvsVirus Hackathon.

Team Discover’s 3D printed remote monitoring device enables COVID-19 patients to have their vital signs monitored remotely; with this solution, one nurse could monitor about 100 patients at the same time. 

The team also won an award from EIT Health at the Hack the Crisis Hungary hackathon in early April, where they displayed a pre-model of their device.

Worn as glasses, patients are able to monitor their own vital signs, such as temperature, oxygen saturation, and respiratory rates, and the data is available on a platform for remote monitoring. The prototype cost EUR 21, and as the team points out, mass production would bring this cost down.

DCbrain: supported by EIT InnoEnergy

EIT Community supported start-up, DCbrain, came top in the ‘Value chains & logistics’ category within Business Continuity. Their solution works to resolve supply chain issues created by the pandemic, including lack of transport capacity, failure of suppliers, closed borders, and warehouse restrictions.

During the hackathon, DCbrain built a prototype to handle the complexities of a broken supply chain. The prototype uses AI to rapidly calculate optimum scenarios to facilitate decision-making. DCbrain was listed as a ‘Company and solution to watch’ in EIT InnoEnergy’s 2018 Clean Air Challenge. 

DCbrain is currenlty part of the EIT Digital Accelerator programme, and were finalists in the EIT Digital Challenge.

Discover what the EIT Community is doing against COVID-19 

EUvsVirus Hackathon

The Hackathon was held at the end of April and was organised by the European Commission, under the patronage of Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, led by the European Innovation Council, and in close collaboration with EU Member States, held an EUvsVirus Hackathon. Civil society, innovators, partners and investors came together to develop innovative solutions for coronavirus-related challenges.

Visit the EUvsVirus Hackathon website

Over three days, a series of challenges was set that addressed a range of health initiatives, including hardware, supporting frontline health workers, scaling telemedicine, contact tracing and containment strategies:

• Health & Life 
• Business Continuity 
• Social & Political Cohesion 
• Remote Working & Education 
• Digital Finance 
• Plus a final topic asking participants to ‘Be creative’

Visit the EUvsVirus Hackathon website for the full list of winners. 

The European Commission has been at the forefront of supporting research and innovation and coordinating European and global research efforts, including preparedness for pandemics.

In addition to a number of past and ongoing research actions related to coronaviruses and outbreaks, the Commission launched several special actions in 2020.

Find more information on the EU's research and innovation response