Hacking crochet in collaboration with SASS and Nordic Food in Tourism invites creative locals in the South and other Icelanders to spend the weekend working with ideas and projects that "update" the area. The winning team of Hacking Hekla 2020 wins ISK 150,000.
Hakkaþon, or solution tournament, is an innovation competition where people come together and create solutions over a short period of time - usually around 24-48 hours. Solutions are a great platform for anyone to share experience and knowledge and work explicitly on a business idea or project. Hacking Hekla is the first solution tournament for the countryside that travels around the country and builds on ideas that are created along the way.
The goal of Hacking Hekla is to bring to the fore the powerful entrepreneurial work that takes place all over the country and at the same time activate creative thinking and innovation. Hacking Hekla's guiding principle is to create a strong network between entrepreneurs and supporters in rural areas, as well as to connect the entrepreneurial scenes in rural and urban areas in Iceland.
Towards a sustainable future with food-related innovation
The first Hacking Hekla will take place in the South from the 16th to the 18th. October in good cooperation with the Association of Southern Municipalities and Nordic Food in Tourism. Nordic Food in Tourism is a Nordic co-operation project, led by Matarauð Íslands and carried out in collaboration with Íslenska ferðaklasann and Matís, which aims to draw attention to the values inherent in local food production and cuisine for both locals and foreign visitors. At the same time, the focus is on increasing the emphasis on sustainability in food production and tourism, so that a balance between growth and protection is maintained. The theme of Hacking Hekla 2020 is "Towards a sustainable future with food-related innovation" and participants will be encouraged to think about the theme from different angles; transport, tourism, nature conservation, regional raw materials, food production and consumption. The outcome of the solution may be a digital solution, product, service, project, software, hardware or marketing campaign.
As the state of society due to Covid does not offer meetings, the event will take place online. In order not to lose the mood in the South, about ten pioneers in the area were visited by a cameraman and the videos will be shown through the solution tournament. Other lectures and lectures will also be accessible to everyone and streamed on Hacking Hekla's Facebook page, so it is ideal to follow there even if you do not participate in the solution tournament itself.
Hacking The Hekla solution arose from Magdalena Falter's doctoral project, which is researching entrepreneurship and innovation in rural areas. She was joined by an experienced project manager, Svava Björk Ólafsdóttir, who has over six years of experience in the support environment for entrepreneurs and has, among other things, managed a number of solutions. They have also worked closely with Arnar Sigurðsson, who is also an experienced player in innovation, but he is developing Hugmyndaþorp, which is a digital platform that is a kind of co-creation solution. Hacking Hekla 2020 will take place to a large extent in that forum. It can be said that the Hacking Hekla team and Arnar are themselves in innovation, as the development of the platform takes place in parallel with this first Hacking Hekla solution.
The solution tournament is for everyone who wants to think in solutions and solve problems and challenges found in the South. Participants do not have to have experience or have previously participated in a solution competition or other entrepreneurial work. Everyone is welcome and this is a great way to promote creative thinking and train in the process of implementing good ideas. All information and the program can be found on the SASS website, where registration is also required. The project is funded by Íslandsbanki and Atvinnuvegur and the Ministry of Innovation.