11/07/2022

#CURCW22: Successful Hackathon Made in Dormagen

Turning complexes into hacks - the first Currenta Coding Weekend in Zons showed how quickly problems can become digital solutions.

Three challenges, ten teams, five prizes - but only winners. The first Currenta Coding Weekend brought a lot of smiles to faces.

Turning complexes into hacks. The participants in the first Currenta Coding Weekend demonstrated how technical tricks can turn complex problems into feasible solutions. From October 28 to 30, they first turned the Zonser Nordhalle into an ideas laboratory for 48 hours and then convinced the jury with tangible solutions. Pitches and the award ceremony formed the finale of an eventful weekend. In the end, there was enthusiasm on all sides, challenges with real profit and a clear goal: the future!

Pumps, pitches, prizes: Challenges turn ideas into real solutions

Better predicting and monitoring pump and plant failures, sharing resources and using them more efficiently, using pumped water storage for sustainable power generation where it's not actually possible - what sounds like the future and theory, the teams in the total of three challenges turned into implementable codes and real models.

"It was amazing how you dug into these complex problems within 48 hours, it was really impressive," said Currenta engineer Daniel Toennessen in praise of the participants and the results they achieved at the closing event. The five-member jury was so impressed by the solutions that it divided the prize money for the third, open challenge among several teams. Currenta organized the Coding Weekend together with the Industry Hub Dormagen and the Smart Industrial City team of the Dormagen Economic Development Corporation. This shows how well the public sector and industry are working together on issues of the future.

The €5,000 prize for the first challenge went to the start-up laizee.ai, which has programmed a software prototype to predict plant failures and thus detect damage and anomalies in real time. Another 5,000 euros went to the team InItToWinIt, which was able to convince with a solution that not only predicts pump failures, but in further steps also automatically determines which pump would be the most cost- and energy-efficient replacement.

In the third, open challenge, which offered room for particularly innovative ideas, the jury awarded Industry Analytics (2,000 euros) and Good Chem (1,500 euros) to two teams that, on the one hand, also developed a smart alarm prototype for plants, but also programmed a platform that enables the sharing of logistics, services and equipment from the various plants at Chempark to use resources more efficiently and share them with one another in the spirit of sustainability.

Great pitches mean tough decisions for the judges: SWD Managing Director Michael Bison, Elke Hohmann from the Zukunftsagentur Rheinisches Revier, Currenta Works Council member Joline Macek and Currenta engineer Daniel Toennessen.

Special prize for special mission: Making possible what cannot be done

A further €1,500 was awarded to Max Welker from the winning team InItToWinIt, who took on a challenge of his own: the 21-year-old developed a model for using pumped water storage facilities to generate electricity sustainably despite the supposedly inadequate geographical conditions at the Dormagen site.

How pleasant and friendly the atmosphere of the weekend was is shown by the decision of InItToWinIt and Max Welker: Despite the decision to take on their own challenge, the two teams shared their winnings jointly. Because at CURCW22 there were no losers and no competition: Together we are heading for the future!

And not only in terms of implementing ideas in the coming weeks and months. "Of course, we also want to stay in touch with the young talents we met at this great event," says Currenta recruiter Dr. Ute Breitsohl. Because creative minds with good ideas are in demand. Now and in the future.

More also under: Successful hackathon premiere: Promising ideas for the chemical park of the future - Press release - www.currenta.de