On April the 7th and the 8th Betacowork hosted the first Youth#Challenge Food Hackathon in Brussels. We wanted to inspire young people to develop a business idea, connect with their peers and experienced entrepreneurs.
When the young future entrepreneurs arrived at Betacowork, they didn’t know each other. But thanks to a funny Ice Breaking game organized by Fabienne Baise they got along right away. The teams were randomly formed and we assigned them 3 keywords around the main theme of the hackathon: food. They had the chance to brainstorm with their mentor and boost their creativity during a Idea Development workshop. Then for the rest of the day they worked hard on their project.

On Saturday the participants attended a How To Pitch Workshop by Gilbert West and then they had only two hours to prepare their perfect pitch! At 11:30 the jury members arrived and the Final Pitch Session started. 3 minutes to tell to the audience what their was project about and 5 minutes to answer to the jury’s tricky questions. The business idea were judged by the following criteria: Innovation, Sustainability (economic, not environmental) and Pitch. And the final winner was… Crème de Café! An innovative way to recycle coffee after its use: transform it into beauty products like scrubs!

This event is part of the “European Coworking Network” project financed by the “Erasmus+” program. The focus of the project is on young people who have a passion for social and economic change and on assisting them to develop their knowledge, skills and networks they need to make a difference.
THANK YOU to the mentors and the participants of this firs edition for the passion and enthusiasm they put into it!