At the hackathon, three ideas that contribute to solving the problem of food waste were awarded.
NGO Green Home held a three-day EIT Good Challenge Lab Hackathon in Podgorica, organized in cooperation with EIT Food, with the aim of developing innovative solutions in the field of agriculture and food industry, as well as providing support for the development of technology and entrepreneurship. This event brought together numerous experts, innovators and entrepreneurs for the purpose of understanding and solving key environmental and economic challenges in Montenegro when it comes to the agri-food industry.
During three days, teams were formed that worked on generating ideas with the support of experienced mentors from various fields: economy, economy, environment, agriculture and business. In the final stage of the hackathon, the participants developed prototypes of their ideas, tested them with consumers and presented them to a jury, which selected the best ideas based on that.
Participants identified key problems such as uncontrolled application of plant protection products, excessive use of plastic, high level of food waste, including by-products and waste in organic agriculture, as well as insufficient use of RES in food production.
Three ideas of this hackathon were awarded, namely:
First place and a prize of 1,500 EUR went to the idea of using potato skins as a basic element for the production of items such as coasters. The awarded team included: Ksenija Doknić, Nataša Vukićević and Nikoleta Marković.
Second place and a prize of EUR 900 were taken by: Marko Milačić, Ivona Pajović and Iva Bulajić, whose idea was based on the creation of new nutritious products for feeding animals based on food waste from agriculture and large consumer chains.
Third place and a prize of 300 EUR were won by: Jovana Minić, Slaven Minić and Andrej Minić, who proposed the development of an application to be used in the hotel industry, which aims to monitor the amount of food in order to reduce the generation of waste from this source.
Although the topics of the hackathon were sustainable agriculture and circular systems in food, food waste stood out as one of the problems on the solution of which several participants showed interest in working, given that over 52,000 tons of food are thrown away annually and every fifth citizen is at risk from poverty. The participants offered a number of innovative ideas to effectively solve this problem, with which the hackathon contributed to the strengthening of awareness of the importance of waste reduction and environmental protection.
