On 18-19 June 2019, BLUE_BOOST project successfully held Blue Hackathon – the first “marathon” on sustainable innovation in the Blue Growth sector ever organised in Friuli Venezia Giulia.

Generally speaking, the goal of a hackathon is to unfold the potentials of professionals in fields linked to innovation with the aim of creating a functioning product, project or structured idea by the end of the event. Hackathons can include the programming language used, the operating system, an application. a wide range of professionals can be involved in a hackathon, including researchers, project managers, and domain experts.

In this case, the hackathon targeted the Blue economy sector with the scope of finding creative solutions for “innovation challenges” in the fields of Environment & Costal Protection, Smart Shipbuilding, Maritime Transport & Yachting Services. The event was preparatory to the BLUE_BOOST Call for Innovation Vouchers that is offering 350.000 EUR in the form of innovation vouchers to 35 selected SMEs and Start-Ups for implementing innovation projects together with a registered Knowledge Provider.

Read more about the event at the dedicated project website page.

THE PROJECT: BLUE_BOOST has the ambitious goal of unlocking the potential of maritime clusters along the shores of the Adriatic and Ionian region. The project will launch a transnational innovation voucher scheme aimed at granting 35 small-scale projects targeting the main sectors of the Blue growth. The project will boost new and existing networks in order to explore possible sectoral cross-fertilization, new ideas and alliances among the actors of the Blue Economy.