We are proud to announce that ide3a alumni have participated and won in the ENHANCE-workshop & hackathon “Smart Sustainable Cities & Communities – Phantom Menace or New Hope?” from May 15-May 19 2023 in Warsaw. The workshop that was organised by Warsaw University of Technology was aimed at helping participants understand the complexity and importance of the processes involved in designing and operating sustainable and smart cities concluding with a competition in which the participants came up with a solution for selected problems diagnosed in their cities.
Julia Silalahi, Florian Pages, and the two former Smart City Hackathon participants Joschka Kayenberg, and Lorenz Nitsch represented the Technische Universität Berlin and came up with an innovative solution to empower consumers and promote renewable energy usage in the European energy sector! Their idea for a voice assistant , providing real-time information about the forecasted share of renewables in total energy production, is a simple yet brilliant way to tackle the challenges posed by non-dispatchable renewable energy sources and lack of awareness among the general public.
By informing users about periods of favourable renewable energy availability and low-price hours, this intuitive and accessible system can enable consumers to adjust their energy consumption patterns, thus supporting the integration of renewable energy into the grid. It’s an excellent example of how technology and information can drive positive change in the fight against climate change and contribute to building smarter, more sustainable cities and communities.
Thus, their solution was chosen to be the winner by the judges of the workshop “Smart Sustainable Cities & Communities – Phantom Menace or New Hope?” amongst seven other ideas submitted by other competing teams from different universities. The entirety of the ide3a network would like to congratulate the winning team wholeheartedly and is looking forward to more groundbreaking solutions and initiatives by ide3a alumni! It’s truly inspiring to see young minds coming up with world-changing ideas to address real-world challenges.
A short overview and summary of all submitted projects can be found here.
