Hackathon event att Epicenter 6-8th September 2024

Purpose and goal:

Our collaboration between Epicenter Stockholm and META to organize an Extended Reality and Visuellt AI hackathon was a great success. We attracted 125 programmers from all over the world and over 400 participants. Major companies such as Ericsson, Volvo, and SJ and leading universities and XR networks participated. The event strengthened Stockholm´s position as a global hub for XR innovation and received great media coverage on LinkedIn and Discord, with follow-up from Swedish media.

Expected results and effects:

We see this as confirmation of the need for an Maker-Space at Epicenter. Such an arena would create a strong demand that attracts technology companies and drives business benefits, which in turn strengthens Sweden´s position as a central XR environment. The great success has created interest in more events, with some exhibitors already planning to develop specific solutions to showcase. The interest is so great that many request a new hackathon already within six months.

Approach and implementation:

The hackathon, which took place at Epicenter in Sept. in Stockholm, gathered 125 developers to compete in creating innovative solutions with XR technology. The event combined competition, collaboration, and innovation to address global challenges. The project had a very tight schedule and implementation during the summer holidays, which made it more time-consuming. In connection with the weekend, another 400 people had the opportunity to share knowledge. This will be a very successful activity.