We organized our first Empowering Youth Chisinau hackathon back in April 2019 and were truly inspired by the participants - Moldovian young people full of ideas and desire to make the world better by solving the problems they face in their daily lives. We knew we were on the right path and started planning our next steps on the Empowering Youth series.
Empowering Youth Chisinau Vol 2 hackathon took place on the 25-28th of March 2021. We got almost 90 applications from young people all over Moldova. The hackathon was planned to take place in Chisinau, Moldova, but the COVID-19 situation didn’t leave us a choice and we had to give up and move the event fully online. We are not giving up on the hackathon retreat idea though, it is just moved to September 2021!
The hackathon started on Thursday, 25th of March, where 12 teams were pitching their ideas and as a result, 8 teams were formed. There were very interesting and promising ideas like a blood donation app, an art subscription box for kids of different ages, a website for Moldovian designers, a social media platform for gamers, and others. No doubt that all these ideas are highly important, but who are the winners?
OVERALL WINNER OF THE EMPOWERING YOUTH CHISINAU VOL 2 HACKATHON - CarWash. A super-useful application for car users and the managers of the car washes. It allows you to choose a car wash closest to you that is ready to wash your car fastest, right when you need it! For car wash owners, it's a great way to manage their booking system and get new customers at the times, where there aren't so many bookings.
2nd PLACE WAS SHARED BETWEEN TWO TEAMS - Sangius and Daily Digital Moldova. Sanguis is an application, which connects blood donors with patience in need, making it easier for the blood donors to act fast at critical times.
Daily Digital Moldova is a digital marketing agency with a mission to help small businesses to market their services more efficiently.
CarWash, Sangius, and Daily Digital Moldova teams get a straight pass to the YEP!Moldova incubation program to develop their brilliant ideas further. CarWash also gets access to the Garage48 post-hackathon acceleration program - 6 weeks of design, tech and bus mentoring!
The other teams that were working at the hackathon were:
EduArt - An art subscription box for kids of different ages
Moldova Store - A website for Moldovan designers;
Oryx - Social media platform for gamers;
DiceX - Team of gamers wishing to make modifications to games and grow the community around making mod;
Eduart - Kits for development of motors skills for children;
Simple/ Thrift Store - Marketplace for affordable second-hand goods;
Garage48 thanks all the participants who applied and took part in the hackathon - you are always welcome in our next events! Also big thanks to Estonian Development Cooperation for making this happen, to YEP Moldova for continuous support with onsite activities, to Artcor for providing the space for creative thinkers, and to all the mentors who helped the participants during the event. See you all in Fall 2021 for Empowering Youth Chisinau vol 3!
Stay tuned for the news on the hackathon retreat and keep following our social media channels for all the other updates!