With hackathons proving their worth as a way to nurture creativity and spur innovation, CSIRO is getting in on the action, inviting potential clean energy innovators to #hackthesun for $10k in prize money. This will be Australia’s first solar hackathon, with the same model internationally already having produced a number of successful solar startups.
The hackathon will present teams with a challenge centring around renewable energy, as part of their goal to continue the conversation around solar and sustainable energy at this crucial time. To run the event, CSIRO has partnered with Silicon Valley-based Powerhouse (formerly SfunCube), a solar-centric incubator responsible for hosting similar hackathons over in the US.
The event will begin with a social networking event on the Friday evening, with the actual hackathon — and presentation of awards — to follow on the Saturday. With a total prize pool of $10k, the first prize winner will take home $4k, second place $3k, third place $2k, with an additional $1k for the People’s Choice Award.
The CSIRO Solar Hackathon will run on April 9 at the CSIRO Energy Centre in Newcastle, and is open to teams of three to five people. Teams can be registered now on CSIRO’s website. To read more click here.
The CSIRO Solar Hackathon presents a challenge for teams to come up with a solution. They present their idea to a team of judges who then award up to $10,000 for the winning solutions. It’s that easy and sounds like a lot of fun.
CSIROs Solar Hackathon starts with a social welcome event from 7.30pm-10pm on Friday evening, 8 April, with hacking, presentations and awards from 8am-10pm on Saturday, 9 April.
Two successful solar startups – Powerhive and UtilityAPI – emerged from previous international Solar Hackathons. We can’t wait to see what software, finance and design solutions are created this year.
