AE Stories

The Firestarter Hackathon, an initiative of Vias, EY and Netwerk Brandweer, took place for the very first time on 17 and 18 October 2019. Among the more than one hundred participants were AE and Mensura, who joined forces to develop an innovative solution in the field of smart firefighting. Mensura was determined to design a tool that would make company tours, an important part of fire prevention, run more efficiently, while AE was eager to apply Microsoft's HoloLens – we love a challenge, after all. Read on to learn all about the exciting result!

As mentioned in part 1 of this project, the AE team helping out the Flemish Sign Language Centre (FSLC) took a short break from their project to attend the AE Hackathon.

Missed our first part about the FSLC’s explanatory dictionary? No worries, you can still read it here!

A heart for young-onset dementia

In Belgium, more than 200,000 people suffer from dementia. Another 1,500 are diagnosed with young-onset dementia. As the number of patients in need of care increases, the pressure on care providers is higher than ever. Having been made personally aware of the issue by a colleague who lost her husband to young-onset dementia, the people working at KBC were quick to learn that extra support is especially needed at times when patients are home alone. Hence, in this year’s edition of the AE Hackathon Team KBC Humaen set out to find a solution that would both enable (young) demented patients to live at home for a longer period of time and relieve their caregivers.

A hackathon brings people together to explore new technologies, insights and business models, allowing them to provide answers to the increasingly complex challenges people, organizations and companies are facing today. All this in a short period of time. But how do you complete your hackathon journey successfully? In the following article, one of our Innovation experts Ruben Monsieurs gives you 7 tips based on his experiences at the yearly AE hackathon.

The AE Hackathon gives customers and prospects 36 hours to come up with an innovative idea and a minimum viableproduct. The fifth edition of the Hackathon took place in June 2018. In this series, you will meet all the participants.