University of Bucharest participated in the Eu vs Virus virtual hackathon
From 24 to 26 April 2020, the European Commission organised a virtual pan-European hackathon to mobilise European innovators and civil society in tackling the COVID19 crisis. This event fitted in the 10 priority actions of the first ERA vs Corona Action Plan launched by the European Innovation Council on 7 April 2020.
Over 20,000 experts, digital fans and innovators participated in the hackathon which generated over 2,000 solutions on the following challenges:
- health & life
- business continuity
- social & political cohesion
- remote working and education
- digital finance
Our CIVIS member university, the University of Bucharest (UB) participated in the hackathon by providing mentorship (especially in the Social & Political Cohesion section), and by having some members included in international teams of researchers.
Eight professors from the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences in UB were mentors for teams engaged in the “Mitigating fake news spreading”, “Protection of isolated and risk communities” and “Protection of citizens & democracy” challenges. Some of the participants also got involved as members of international teams which built products or prototypes during the hackathon (for example an operational forum, at the European level and beyond, for collaboratively making those political decisions that affect citizens’ lives and prospects OR a browser extension that automatically warns users about those news articles that linguistically resemble the style of fake news).
The University was also represented by its Vice-Rector for Research, professor Carmen Chifiriuc, who was both an ambassador of the event and a mentor for international teams.