MacGregor to hold hackathon in Hamburg

SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 — MacGregor, part of Cargotec, is staging an open innovation hackathon event at the Interschalt Marine Center near Hamburg, Germany, November 11-13,2016.

A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest or codefest) is an event where software developers, graphic designers, service designers, business developers and the host collaborate on innovative new concepts that solve the challenges provided by the hosting company.

It connects large industrial enterprises with agile developers from start-ups, SMEs, other companies and universities.

The MacGregor hackathon continues the success of CargoHack hackathons, organized by Cargotec companies to speed up their innovation processes and to extend their development ecosystem. The goal of this “Hack the Sea” hackathon is to explore and experiment new opportunities to reduce waste in the maritime industry.

The event will be organized in collaboration with Industryhack, a pioneer of such contests. There are various prizes, including a EUR 10,000 first prize.

“We invite brilliant and agile tech minds and digital talents to innovate how to utilize the potential to reduce the unnecessary maritime industry waste,” says Alexander Nürnberg, Senior Vice President, Technology and R&D at MacGregor. “MacGregor has identified a lot of potential to improve the efficiency of cargo flow and load handling within the global maritime industry. While embarking on numerous in-house projects, MacGregor is inviting the stakeholders to co-create a more sustainable future together. We are organizing the hackathon to boost innovation in this area.”

Lasse Eriksson, Vice President, Digitalization at Cargotec says: “Cargotec is on a drive to become a world leader in intelligent cargo handling, increasing our focus on software, services and digital business. The results and feedback from our first CargoHack hackathon in April are very encouraging, and we see great opportunities now, as the next step in implementing our strategy, to work together with the external development community to solve the waste challenge in maritime industry. We expect to see a lot of interest towards this event, both locally around Hamburg, but also globally.”

Teams and individuals may submit their applications for attending the CargoHack hackathon event online at www.cargohack.com. Additional information on the event and the challenges, as well as on results after the event, will be available at the same address.