Moments before the Passover holiday, the School of Industrial Engineering & Management hosted the fifth National Hackathon for Industrial Engineering and Management at Shenkar.

The Hackathon, which includes engineering, institution, management, software, and design, was founded by the Ira Foundation for Business, Technology & Society and brings together students from a range of academic institutions across the country for two days of thinking, creating, and activity in a variety of fields to address a range of issues brought forward by Israel’s leading companies.

The fifth Israeli National Hackathon was marked by creative and innovative tech solutions aimed at solving professional issues to advance business, economic, industrial, governmental and community organizations, using engineering, scientific and design methodologies.

In the Hackathon, students grapple with issues that require creative solutions and/or that have not yet been researched. They do this by demonstrating innovation and creativity and relying on their depth of professional knowledge.

The suggested solutions are presented after 36 hours of continuous, intensive, and creative teamwork for development and thinking outside the box.  The results are presented to a panel of judges, leading industrial and academic figures in Israel.

Among the companies that have participated in the Hackathon in the past are Intel, M51, the Israeli Directors' Union, Clalit Health Services, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, the Electra Group, the Israel Ports Development & Assets Company, the Prime Minister's Office, eBay, Optimove, TOM – Tikkun Olam Makers, and more.

Criteria for winning in the Hackathon include: creativity and innovation, technological feasibility, economic and business feasibility, level of development reached during the Hackathon, and predicted technological, economic, and social impact. The prizes for the first, second, and third place winning teams are 15,000 NIS, 10,000 NIS, and 5,000 NIS, respectively.

This year’s first place winners were Abed al-Kareem Masri , a student from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Shenkar, and Doron Ortner, Dor Bracha, and Noam Nir from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The group worked on a challenge from Kornit Digital: charging facilities and printing on baseball caps. David Tulipman, Celine Strauss, and Harel Ben-David served as mentors from the company.

The second place winners were Shmuel Din, Shimon Omri, and Noam Brier , a group of students from Shenkar and Tel Aviv University who worked on a challenge from Shenkar: helping students with learning disabilities understand and memorize complex scientific formulas. Reut Shalit served as a mentor from the college.

The second place winners. Photo: Achikam Ben Yosef

The third place winners were students Alon Rosenbaum and Arad Buzaglo, working with a group of students from Germany, who worked on a challenge from Haier: dishwasher architecture.

The third-place winners. Photo: Achikam Ben Yosef

At the top of the page: the first place winners. Photo: Achikam Ben Yosef

Published on 14-04-2022