Thirteen smart textiles SME’s from the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Latvia, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden presented their products/prototypes and challenges of overcoming technical or market entry barriers at the first SmartX IoT hackathon in Berlin. The hackathon was hosted by Sourcebook and four Berlin-based textiles and flexible electronics labs.
The IoT Hackathon, which took place during October 29-30, 2019, was organised by SmartX partner Sourcebook. It aimed to raise the smart textiles market innovation potential amongst European start-ups and SMEs. The event featured ideation sessions, during which teams had the opportunity to be supported by experienced coaches and lab partners, who would help them develop project plans for their funding phase. They were teamed up with software and hardware engineers, business developers, and designers in order to enrich their initial solutions with competences spanning technology, business, and collaboration.
Coaches included representatives from SmartX partner organisations: Textile ETP, Texfor, DSP Valley, Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum, University of Borås, DITF Denkendorf, IFM, Citeve, CITC, EuraMaterials, Centexbel, and Città Studi – Po.in.tex.
The hackathon participants also had the chance to network and meet potential partners to kickstart R and D projects, scale up their concepts, and gain application readiness for the upcoming SmartX funding calls starting in late November 2019.
The event was an important stepping stone for the SmartX programme during its early phase. By exploring the methodology and results of the hackathon, the consortium partners will gain a deeper understanding of the value chain set-up and end market needs for successful smart textiles innovation. The results of the first hackathon will help fine-tune SmartX coaching methods, future workshops, and hackathons.
