Helsing Blog AI for Ukraine Recovery Hackathon

Following the announcement of our Estonian office, Helsing was proud to be the primary external sponsor of the AI for Ukraine Recovery Hackathon. Held between the 6th and 8th Sept in Tallinn and Kyiv, the hackathon aimed to harness modern developments in AI technologies to streamline Ukraine’s post-war recovery.Kyiv-based teamsOver the course of 48 hours, 28 different teams came together to craft ideas and solutions centered around 5 different topics — damage evaluation, support logistics, fighting disinformation, cybersecurity, and mental health.Each team brought something unique to the event, both in skills but also backgrounds. It was truly a melting pot of ideas and expertise!Alongside the participants were some of Estonia and Ukraine’s best-and-brightest founders, co-founders, and domain experts, who offered their time and knowledge to mentor each of the teams over the course of the two days.Tallin-based teamsIn addition to mentoring the teams, Helsing also held a seminar on “AI acceleration for startups” — something both very close to our hearts, and highly relevant for the contestants!In many ways, the hackathon was the perfect distillation of Helsing values — enabling change through innovative and creative application of AI, at speed — assisting our Ukrainian allies — and sharing of knowledge with fellow start-ups in Estonia.At the end of the 48 hours, the finalists were picked. Each team was evaluated on a combination of impact, innovation, demo quality, commercial viability, and team-work. The deliberation was not easy, but finally two teams were nominated as the grand prize winners, each receiving €2,500 to bootstrap them into the pre-accelerator program!Runners-up also received access to the pre-accelerator program, as well as tickets to The sTARTUp Day and Latitude59, to enable them to connect with industry leaders and potential future investors.The winning team in TallinnThe winning team in KyivDespite a long 48 hours, the event was hugely energising — a potent reminder of both the work that we must do, and the importance of innovation and AI in this space.Helsing looks forward to many more such events in the future, in all of our hubs. Stay tuned!Luke T, Software EngineerAI for Ukraine Recovery Hackathon was originally published in Helsing Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.