The hackAtech is back in 2021 with three editions

Marathon of deeptech projects

The hackAtech is an open innovation event articulated over several major phases, from ideation to project structuring, and culminating in a 54-hour sprint at the crossroads of a startup weekend and a hackathon.

Its objective? To stimulate new deeptech startup projects based on Inria's digital technologies and expertise and on business issues proposed by partner companies.

A national event organised in different regions

Initiated by the Inria Lille – Nord Europe centre in March 2020, the hackAtech is being deployed in regional ecosystems. This year, the Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique and Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée centres are launching their first edition, followed by Lille which is renewing the experience.

The hackAtech offers to use Inria's technologies and expertise to imagine tomorrows applications!

The hackAtech is divided into several phases:

• A preparatory phase during which events are organised to acculturate participants to Inria's technologies and expertise in order to understand their uses and challenges with a view to defining and building the startup project and identifying the business issues encountered by companies.
• The 54-hour Sprint (or 48 hours depending on the centre) to validate the technical feasibility and economic viability of the projects in teams.
• A support phase during which the winning startup projects of each Challenge benefit from 6 months of support from Inria and its partners.

There are several types of challenges. The projects are built on Inria's, its partners' or open source technology, and must respond to a problem raised by a partner, a research team or an entrepreneur:

Open Challenge: any participant or team may propose a project based on a business problem to which a technology or digital expertise can provide an answer.

Partner Challenge: one or more employees from each partner company can formulate a challenge based on a problem they are facing that digital technology or expertise can solve.

Challenge Scientists: one or more scientists from a research team propose a challenge to build a startup project based on a use case of their technology or expertise.

• Students / alumni with a scientific or innovation management background who are interested in entrepreneurship and who wish to test their knowledge and develop their network.
• Startup project holders who would like to test an idea or who need a technological element, entrepreneurs looking for a creation project,
• Business experts and/or employees who want to remove a technological barrier, identify talent.
• Partners who can provide challenges and identify their future talent

It is not necessary to have a startup idea to register for the hackAtech, participants can join a team during the Sprint.

© Inria / Photo Sébastien Jarry

"I've always had a desire to be an entrepreneur and have tons of projects in mind: I've spent the last 10 years in startups in management and technical strategy roles, and in 2019 I joined the Euratechnologies incubator on an entrepreneurial project around the traceability of fresh products, and it was for this project (DataFresh) that I took part in the hackAtech. The hackAtech was a great way to meet people and a great booster for the project. In particular, we were able to create the foundations of a prototype in a few dozen hours. But it was also a great time, a good mood, meetings and a good way to test the team's ability to work together."