A new approach to exploit the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for improving human resources strategies has won this year’s “Hack2Change” Hackathon of the European University Alliance E³UDRES². E³UDRES², the Engaged and Entrepreneurial European University as Driver for European Smart and Sustainable Regions, staged this event as a first energetic step to act as a source of smart and sustainable innovations for small or medium-sized towns and their surrounding rural areas.
The second prize of the multi-national event went to an application that connects citizens, neighborhoods and municipalities in the organization of events and community projects. An idea to use AI and digital tools for the pest control in vineyards won the third prize.
Recruiting the right personnel is a cumbersome process loaded with many pitfalls and costly failures. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for optimizing this process is still in its infancy and many companies are looking for fresh ideas how to best use this powerful technology. One such company is ABN Cleanroom Technology (Belgium). In order to benefit from AI for human resources strategies, they approached E³UDRES² and staged a challenge for the “Hack2Change” Hackathon 2021 – an initiative that paid off for both, ABN Cleanroom Technology and the team that tackled their challenge.
50 PARTICIPANTS, 20 MENTORS, 6 CHALLENGES, 3 WINNERS All together the Hack2Change brought together 50 participants from several European countries including Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Latvia, Portugal and Romania. 20 mentors from all six higher education institutions that comprise E³UDRES² joined them and guided their creative approaches when working on the six challenges. These were:
1. “Efficient Collection of Biodegradable Waste” posed by ProfiKomp (Hungary) 2. “Enriching the Wellbeing of Smart City Inhabitants” posed by Politehnica University Timișoara & Cowork Timișoara (Romania) 3. ”Sustainable Farming in Times of Climate Change” posed by Latvian Rural Training and Advisory Centre (Latvia) 4. “NENA - The Neighborhood Network” posed by the Federal Government of Lower Austria (Austria) 5. “Using AI to Find the Right Talents That Fit Within Our Company” posed by ABN Cleanroom Technology (Belgium) 6. “Artificial Intelligence and Digital Tools for Pest Control in Vineyards” posed by AVIPE - Associação Avícola de Pernambuco (Portugal)
Together the challenges addressed all research areas of E³UDRES², namely Circular Economy, Human Contribution to AI and Wellbeing & Active Ageing. And it was particular in the area of AI that the teams were especially innovative, as two of three prizes sponsored by IBM went to creative ideas in that field. By coming up with “A.R.T. (AI-powered Recruiting Technology)”, the winning team developed ideas within the 36h of the hackathon about how to exploit AI for talent matching, talent sharing and talent retention in a regional Small to Medium Sized Enterprise (SME).
ABN Cleanroom Technologies, a SME located in Belgium, had posed that challenge and was pleased with the results of the winning team. ABN likes to work together with regional talents and the team’s output will help them optimize this process using AI. Another way to use AI has been developed by the team that took on the challenge by AVIPE – Associação Avícola de Pernambuco, Portugal. They were looking into using AI and digital tools to control pests in rural vineyards and won the third prize. The second prize went to the team that sketched NENA, a neighborhood network app that allows to organize local events, to follow their progress and that immediately connects all participants with the local municipality – an activity that fitted well into ongoing and focused digitalization efforts by the county of Lower Austria. Hannes Raffaseder, Project Leader & Chief Research and Innovation Officer at St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences (Austria) comments: “E³UDRES² gets novel ideas and clever solutions for real life problems to regional cities and rural areas. Hack2Change was an as challenging as entertaining first step and many more will follow.”
E³UDRES² aims to co-create a European multi-university campus that will act as a source of smart and sustainable innovations for small or medium-sized towns and their surrounding rural areas. In doing so, E³UDRES² will contribute to the European Education, Research and Innovation Area. The alliance funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Commission comprises six higher education institutions that represent 55.700 students, 7.300 staff and 43 faculties from six countries. Namely these institutions are: the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences (Austria), the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal (Portugal), the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (Hungary), the UC Leuven-Limburg UAS (Belgium), the Politehnica University Timișoara (Romania) and the Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences (Latvia).
Together as E³UDRES² the institutions aim to establish joint degrees and modules, research groups, living labs, innovation centers as well as pools of experts and open resources. “We also will engage in activities that promote open and engaged knowledge exchanges that contribute and interact with regional communities”, adds Hannes Raffaseder. “And our first-ever hackathon was an exciting and entertaining opportunity to be part of this.”
More information and the full program to “Hack2Change”, the E³UDRES² Hackathon 2021: https://eudres.eu/hackathon-2021