The Second Annual Global NTX Hackathon 2023
Almost two years ago, this was an idea.
In January 2022, I had an idea to explore how NTX Chapter efforts could be celebrated globally in one massive event. Within city chapters, hacknights, hackathons, and meet-ups are a regular thing happening at the local scale and engaging the local community. In Barcelona, where I lead the local NTX Chapter, we’ve done the same for the past few years.
The new idea was to come together, compile our efforts, and maximize engagement, outreach, and chapter visibility — to turn local activations into a global movement.
October 2022 saw the first NTX Global Hackathon, with 500+ participants joining globally, including across five in-person locations.
The second annual instalment in 2023 it was a blast, with more than 1000 participants, and 10 in-person spots!
Thank you!
Thank you to the 1000+ awesome participants, whose enthusiasm and dedication made this global experience the best it could be. Thank you to the organizing team, whose hard work made this global event a success, and to our partners and sponsors, who brought invaluable support. Finally, thank you to our speakers and judges, who shared their experience and started a diverse conversation ranging from building the cheapest EEG to starting a neurotech company — and beyond.
The Weekend
From snowy Vienna and Zurich to warm Kharagpur, the Hackathon took off on Saturday morning, opening an online arena for networking, team-building, hacking, learning, and creating projects across all four tracks.
Tracks
Participant teams took part in one of four tracks, sufficiently defined to give guidance yet open-ended enough to allow a creative approach in each: technology and hardware; software; design and strategy; ethics. The Hackathon organising team set tracks with the joint intentions to drive diversity across the various projects, while at the same time creating inspiration around potentially overlooked topics, such as ethics.
Chapters
2022 saw five in-person locations host neurohackers in Europe and the US. In 2023 we made it to ten locations spread across India, Europe, and the Americas: Los Angeles, Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Paris, Vienna, London, Zurich, Chennai, Delhi, Kharagpur.
Reaching over 1000 global participants, the 2023 Hackathon also met an additional milestone of hosting more than 300 participants at in-person events!
Countries
This was indeed a global movement as virtual and in-person participants joined from more than 50 countries, from all continents!
Looking at the map, we know we have some homework to do for the next iteration to reach the African neurotech action.
Here is our full list of participating countries: Algeria, Colombia, Japan, Serbia, Argentina, Denmark, Kenya, Singapore, Armenia, Egypt, Lebanon, Spain, Australia, England, Luxembourg, Sri Lanka, Austria, France, Mexico, Sweden, Bangladesh, Georgia, Morocco, Switzerland, Belarus, Germany, Netherlands, Taiwan, Belgium, Ghana, New Zealand, Turkey, Bolivia, Hungary, Macedonia, U.S.A., Brazil, India, Pakistan, UAE, Canada, Iran, Poland, UK, Chile, Ireland, Portugal, Ukraine, China, Italy, Russia, Vietnam.
Speakers and Judges
Throughout both days of 2023’s Global Hackathon, more than 15 speakers shared their experiences, ideas, practices and research with the world and the Hackathon participants. They formed an awe-inspiring line-up, of whom many were involved in NTX Hackathons previously, and made their way through to founding companies, startups, or other endeavors.
Taking advantage of the line-up’s diverse backgrounds, several speakers joined the jury panel, judging the projects across the various tracks.
Neurotechnology Experience
This might probably be the statistic the organizing team is most proud of. Hackathons usually sound scary, and very technical, keeping non-experts hesitant with questions such as; “what if I don’t find a team to work with?”, “What are the skills needed to take part?”, and so on.
The Hackathon has been successful in reaching more than 500 first-timers new to the topic of neurotechnology, coming in for their first interaction. Being able to achieve this is as rewarding as it gets: bringing neurotechnology to everyone and expanding knowledge, awareness, community building, and therefore, most importantly: innovation.
Age Groups
The Hackathon reached an impressive ~10% of participants less than 18 years old, and a stunning participation of neurotech-ers who are 50+.
With an overwhelming 60% of participants below 25, overlapping with previous experience statistics, we have realized a growing interest, curiosity, and interest in neurotechnology in general.
Conclusion
The neurotechnology sector, just like its community, is growing day after day — with initiatives spanning the globe. As we reflect on the success of the Second Global Annual NTX Hackathon, let us carry forward the momentum, fostering collaboration, innovation, and inclusivity in the dynamic field of neurotechnology, just as NeuroTechX holds its pillars of community, education, and innovation. This — we believe — is the magic formula.
It is both a perk and a responsibility of the neurotech community to harness the energy and enthusiasm generated by these events to drive meaningful change. Whether you’re a seasoned neurotech enthusiast or a curious newcomer, there’s a place for you in this community.
Join us in shaping the future of neurotechnology — let’s innovate, collaborate, and inspire together!
Written by Firas Safieddine.
Firas Safieddine is a Barcelona-based designer, architect, artist, researcher, and neurotech enthusiast, who coined the term “Electrical Ecologies” and aims at designing the first ‘architecture brain implant’.
