UPDATE: This is a fully online event, with a team formation happening on the 25th of March and hackathon from the 26th to the 28th of March.
We are excited to say that Garage48 is back in Moldova for the Empowering Youth hackathon which will be held on the 26-28th of March in Chisinau! Garage48 and Yep! Moldova invite young inspiring people to join us for the Garage48 Empowering Youth Chișinău Vol 2 and boost their ideas during the 48 hours!
There is no doubt that the 21st century is definitely the century of young people who change our world really fast by creating innovative ideas and setting new trends.
Hackathons are a great opportunity to try yourself, find cool people ready to work with you and help you to create clear goals and objectives, learn more about startups and entrepreneurship, and finally, get your idea into a prototype with help of the experienced mentors! We believe that young people will determine our future, that's why it’s important to empower them and give them an opportunity to share their ideas. You(th) rock!
🚀 How does it work?
1. In the beginning of the hackathon we will form teams around best ideas - please don’t worry if you don’t have an idea, you are more than welcome to participate in the hackathon by joining teams to work together!
2. During the 48 hours you will have exciting, hardworking, and brainstorming time working on the idea which will turn into a working prototype by the end of the hackathon.
3. To make it real, there will be classy local and international mentors ready to share their expertise and help you throughout the whole event.
4. All the finished prototypes will be evaluated and the best teams will get rewarding prizes that will empower them to develop their ideas even further!
🧐 For whom?
For the hackathon we are welcoming all young people - regardless of age, gender or nationality. If you have the spark inside and passion to make the world better, please join us for the Empowering Youth hackathon!
📍 Where will it be?
The hackathon is being held in Artcor, Chisinau, Moldova.
🏆 Prizes
Best teams will get a chance to receive monetary grants, post-mentorship and access to the incubation program by YEP and Garage360 acceleration program.
🎫 Registration
Young designers, passionate marketers, inspiring developers, big-thinkers - register now and get ready for the journey that will bring your idea to the next level! And remember - you(th) rock!
👉 https://garage48.typeform.com/to/zZhyEPOq 👈
Make sure to attend the Facebook event for the updates:
👉 https://www.facebook.com/events/232857948312423👈
Garage48 Hackathon is organised by Garage48 and YEP Moldova with the financial support of Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the Fund for Development and Humanitarian Aid.
✅ PITCHING IDEAS
Ideas are presented based on the “elevator-pitch" method within 90 seconds. The event host and the audience can ask 1 to 3 short questions. You can prepare 1 (one) PDF slide to support your pitch. You should send the slide by Thursday morning 11am (March 25th) to mari@garage48.org (Subject: name of your project).
Consider the following key points:
NB! Practice your pitch to your friends or family before you present! 90 seconds goes really fast!
✅ FORMING TEAMS
We'll start the whole program on Thursday, March 25th at 17:30.
Thursday is meant for individuals who have ideas to present their ideas to a wider audience. After that, we will split the idea owners into separate online rooms and individuals who don't
have an idea get to visit the idea owners. If there's a mutual interest, a team member
will be added to the idea. Each team should have minimum 3 people who are able to cover a wide range of tasks (product development, design, project management / business model)
Please remember, that you have to submit your team with its members on the link below at 10 pm on Thursday the 25th of March.
xxxxx (link is coming soon!)
✅ WHAT TO BRING WITH YOU?
Positive attitude, open-mind, and lots of energy together with everything you need for rapid product development. Please make sure you have a
✅ WORKING IN TEAMS
After forming the teams, we will ask you to make your team a separate Slack channel on the event's Slack workspace. We will share the guidelines on how to do it on the morning of Friday, the 26th of March. The morning of the 26th is for you to get comfortable on Slack- the whole event will take place over Slack and Zoom.
You should start by dividing roles, setting the product vision, customer journey, and start working right away. It is very important that you have a project manager (team lead/field expert) on the team - one of his tasks is to keep the focus of the team, one eye on the clock and the other on the team progress. 48 hours is really a short time.
✅ MENTORS
We have arranged great mentors to work with the teams throughout the weekend. Be open and ask for their advice and contacts. They are there to help you!
👉 MOST IMPORTANT - have fun! 👈
✅ SUNDAY DEMO PRESENTATIONS:
- We admit, that the development process is of the ultimate importance. But we still have a jury, to evaluate the results and choose the top projects.
✅WHAT ARE THE MAIN TOOLS YOU WILL USE FOR THE HACKATHON?
The main communication channel of the hackathon will be Slack. All the selected individuals are invited to join the hackathon's Slack group a couple of days prior to the online hackathon begins. We recommend downloading the Slack app to both - your smartphones and computers and allow notifications. Slack will be the place for important hackathon workflow announcements, the place for communication with your team and a good way to connect with the mentors.
Download Slack for your
The second important tool will be Zoom. We will run the webinars and checkpoints via Zoom and share the links with you over Slack.
Download Zoom for your
❓FAQ❓
1. What is Garage48 Empowering Youth?
It is an intensive hackathon where people pitch ideas, form teams, and build prototypes or sometimes full product/service over 48 hours.
2. Who can participate?
Registration is open to anyone: teams and individuals. We are looking for Designers (Graphic, UI, UX), Project Managers, Marketers, Front-end Developers, Back-end Developers, Full stack Developers, and people who are into hacking and want to deliver innovative working prototypes in just 48 hours!
If you register for the hackathon event, then we expect you to be ready to work on the project also after the hackathon is over.
PS. If you come as a team, each team member still has to register individually.
3. I don't have my own team? Can I come?
Sure, Garage48 is about networking, meeting new people, hacking, building new products/services, and finding new friends. After pitching ideas on Thursday evening, all participants will choose their favorite idea and form a team on-site. You should carefully review all pitched ideas, talk to the team members, negotiate, brainstorm, and finally find the best matching project for yourself. Then join this team and start working on the project.
4. How to submit and pitch an idea?
We ask all participants to submit their ideas already when registering.
5. How long is the pitch?
On Thursday night there are 90-second pitches for each idea, followed by 2-3 questions from the audience/mentors. You can have one slide (PDF) to support your pitch (send it in by Thursday noon). Sunday night's pitch is 180 seconds.
6. How are the ideas selected for the event?
Afterward, when ideas are pitched, each participant will choose the idea that s/he wants to work on. Ideas that are able to gather a sufficient team around them will prevail. People who have chosen the ideas that are not able to gather the proper team will have to join other teams.
7. If I present an idea at the event, can someone steal it?
Of course :) Hackathon has many participants, including journalists, bloggers, and tweeters - your idea will not remain a secret. So, if you think you have a top-secret, patentable, Nobel-prize-worthy idea, then don't present it in the hackathon ;) On the other hand, if you have an idea that has been sitting in your head for some time, waiting for the right time or the right people to be put into practice, then this hackathon is a great place and environment for making it happen!
8. Are 48-hours enough?
Yes, and No. 48 hours is more than enough time to take an idea, build a working prototype, alpha or beta service and make it publicly available for users, potential customers. (Unless you are building a nuclear reactor, new drug, a spaceship, or something similar, of course). However, to make your prototype, alpha or beta into a viable business, much more work after the event is needed. We encourage (and give preference in selection) those participants, who show an interest and willingness to continue working on (successful and promising) ideas after the event!
9. Is it a startup competition to get funding?
Not really. The main idea of the event is to build a startup community, find new friends and meet people, build something cool in 48 hours. But it's not so much about winning the prize or getting financing. This hackathon is mostly an experience of building a new (working) project in 48 hours, meet and work with new people whom you probably would not meet otherwise.
10.Can I buy a domain and set up a hosting account before the event?
Yes, you can do various preparations for your project unless you start designing or coding. We encourage you to think of the project name, business model, short-term and long-term plan, etc. But it's not allowed to do any coding work on the project before the event.
11. What happens to the developed products and services after the event?
The project built during hackathon events owned by the team who built it. So it's up to the teams to decide how do they take it forward. Some ideas are very likely to be developed into successful businesses, others struggle to find a feasible business model and fade away. Organisers are encouraging teams to continue developing the ideas and provide mentorship, but ultimately, the success or failure rests solely with the members of the team.
12. Is the hackathon a continuous 48-hour marathon or can I sleep during the event, too?
Sleep is for the weak. (Just kidding). While some teams pulled all-nighters at the last events, most successful teams did take time to get a full 7-8 hour sleep, come back in the morning refreshed, and were fully productive during the day. We provide floor space in the venue in case you don't want to go home or to your hotel.
13. What are the criteria for the jury to select the winning team?
The jury gives points between 1 to 10 and evaluates the following: people and team, business potential, product, presentation.
