As part of the Open Innovation Challenge, EUTOPIA is hosting the EUTOPIA Placemaking Challenge programme Hackathon. It will take place from the 23 to the 25 February, and the theme of the challenge is innovative procurements within coordinated goods distribution.

Every year, over 250 000 government agencies within the EU procure products and services for over 2 trillion Euros per year, to meet the expectations and needs of its citizens. Be it public healthcare, roads or pencils. As such, these agencies have an enormous effect on what types of offerings the market provides.

The EUTOPIA partners see the Hackathon as a unique opportunity to create new ways for academia to involve students and academics in procurements. The Hackathon can contribute to creating new perspectives and essentially pull the market to provide new innovative and sustainable products and services.

The Hackathon brings students from different disciplines from the six partner universities together in intensive workshops along with procurers to increase the innovative capacity of their respective procurements. The students' assignment is to present a creative ideal scenario of what society can look like based on the insights and perspectives they create in relation to the specific procurement. After the Hackathon, the procurement officers will analyse the material and use it as inspiration for upcoming procurements.

What: a 3 day Hackathon using design thinking principles.
 
When: 23 to 25 February 2022.

Presentation: 25 February 2022 from 10:00 – 13:00.

How: Hybrid, with student teams working digitally together with procurement officers and stakeholders on a local level and coming together on an international level.