On 4-6 November 2022, ISU hosted the French edition of the 4th edition of the CASSINI Hackathon. For three days, teams of motivated space hackers met either in Strasbourg or remotely (including an entire team from New Caledonia) to work on this year’s challenges that aimed to hack the finance sector. The weekend was the culmination of a series of preparatory activities led by the ISU Incubator and ISU Space Policy and Entrepreneurship Lab with all participants, including the ISU Big Ideas Campaign.
The events brought to the International Space University (ISU) Central Campus 10 experts from the European Space Agency (ESA), Venture Capital firm Karista, ISU incubatee EwoSmart, PricewaterhouseCooper PwC, SES, SERTIT-ICube as well as ISU Faculty that shared insights of the space sector, its relations with the finance sector and how to build a successful start-up and how to use space data. The different teams could also benefit from experts’ advice, coaching support, and expertise. The weekend was also rhythmed by live interviews with the CASSINI central hub of the organizers and some participating teams.
Five teams (on-site, hybrid and online teams) entered the final competition of the French edition and pitched their ideas:
Team 1: IAI on blockchain for local indigenous land utilisation
Team 2: Road-Omics aims at empowering countries to build sustainable infrastructure
Team 3: SUNER-G aims at the optimization of green energy distribution
Team 4: Neptune Energy & Space looked at harnessing coastal resources
Team 5: Fin_Look a software platform to obtain factual data for the financial sector
A jury of experts composed of Sabrina Alam from SES, Gregoire Chabrol from ICAM, and Danijela Ignjatovic Ogrizovic, Walter Peeters, and Nicolas Peter all from ISU assessed the performance of all teams.
The ISU team “SUNER-G” was selected by the jury to represent France among the 9 other European countries in the competition. The team presented its idea on Wednesday 9 November 2022 at the DEMO Day. And they – Diego Greenhalgh, Carla Tamai, Miraslava Kaslouskaya, Darren Berlein, David Serrano, Mustafa Shahid, Lisa Kucher – won! SUNER-G is therefore part of the 10 best teams of the edition “Space for the Financial World 2022”. Watch SUNER-G’s pitch!
Prof. N. Peter indicated that:
“Hosting the CASSINI Hackathon was a recognition of the strength of the ISU Incubator or ISU Space Policy and Entrepreneurship Lab in fostering space entrepreneurship. It was also a good experience for the participants, new ideas emerged, and potential promising business would make great start-ups. Incubation is becoming the 4th I of ISU’s credo”.
