AustrianStartups Hackathon #2

Hi! 👋

We are HeroBox, a young startup from Vienna and we revolutionize take-away to make it more environmentally friendly.

We have developed an app-based system that allows you, as a take-away lover, to easily get your to-go order in a HeroBox (high-quality reusable packaging), which you can then return to any participating restaurant. There it will be washed and is ready for the next order.

The solution to an urgent problem 💡

Did you know that every year in Vienna alone about 100 million disposable food packaging are used and thrown away? This not only has ecological consequences, it is also a huge economic problem, as restaurateurs pay up to EUR 0.80 per package!

The Challenge 🎆

1. We are starting a movement! The movement to make reusable packaging part of everyday life. And we are building the community for that right now. What is your most creative suggestion for community growth?
2. Grow, Grow, GROW! HeroBox is a land grab game because the bigger the network, the bigger the benefit for everyone! How do we get more restaurants on the team?
3. Tech sells. We are constantly improving our app. What are you still missing in the app? Integration of Mjam? more filter options?

We want to work with you 🤝

Are you passionate about climate solutions and the innovative circular economy? You always wanted to find out more about a reusable concept? You are creative and know how to market such a concept? Then HeroBox is the right thing for you!

Have fun at the Hackathon!

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/c620c907-60bb-4ae7-bbf5-5e57721f176d/Teamfoto_HeroBox.jpg

From 2025 onwards, every white-collar worker in Europe will only need 15 minutes from her/his home to her/his workplace by bike. conow is reducing CO2 emissions resulting from individual passenger traffic between suburb and urban areas due to the centralization of work in the cities. We identify and map the places, where Coworking Spaces have the greatest environmental, social, and economic added value and enable the realization of these Spaces with suitable realization partners.
Around 25 percent of the CO2 emitted worldwide results from the transport sector. This corresponds to around 8.26 billion metric tons of CO2. A major contributor to these emissions is the commuting between peripheral and urban regions due to the centralization of work in cities, an outdated work culture and the lack of digital infrastructure outside and around cities. (About 270,000 people commute to Vienna alone every day). CO2 emissions are not saved efficiently enough by more sustainable mobility solutions alone. Work must be decentralized and routes to work vehemently shortened.
We strengthen rural areas and help communities to become more attractive, to revitalize themselves and to increase primary residences in their region -> B2G We help companies to become more attractive employers, to save CO2 taxes, to comply with CO2 laws and to save marketing costs-> B2B We give people more time that they previously wasted commuting and therefore a better work-life balance-> B2C tasks & skills:

➔ IT solution/ software development
➔ product management
➔ Marketing
➔ Funding Experience
➔ Governmental and int. Organizations Background
➔ Deeper exploration of our customer segments B2B, B2C, B2G

…We are looking for a technical Co-Founder

What is going on inside of us? Research actually knows a lot of things already but it is too individual to be covered in the classic sick&healthy separation.
Therefore, I would like to close the gap and offer a health-fingerprint analysis directly to costumers with at-home sampling and understandable data presentation. The longer the costumers tracks themselves, the more information can be given including fitness, nutrition and health-related information.
The problem I would like to tackle at the hackathon is the balance between what is interesting for the costumer and what are we allowed to tell without the supervision of a medical doctor.
Of course a life science background is helpful but as it is more about costumer interests everybody interested in that topic is welcome!

Agriculture and the way humans produce crop hasn’t changed for over 10.000 years and is based on the assumption resources like fertile soil, water, pollinators,… are infinite. Our global food production faces multiple problems, which cause a serious threat to the millions of people’s access to food. We have to act now to change this path before it’s too late. What benefit do you give to customers?
We provide a device which automatically takes care of all different kinds of crops, from tomato till corn, from salad till strawberry. It reduces the needed resources up to 90% compared to regular agriculture methods and saves costs at the same time. This allows access to organic grown fruits and vegetables with a much smaller impact to the environment for a much cheaper price than ever before. As the solution is easily scalable it can also be used in private homes to support the increasing amount of people who want to home-grow their food.

Yes, we have a few topics to work on regarding the improvement of our already existing prototype. What problem do you want to solve for the hackathon weekend?
We want to use the weekend to create the machine learning based flower recognition. The plants get observed by cameras, connected to a Raspberry Pi. It is necessary to recognize flowers inside our device and, based on the camera feeds, calculate their exact position inside the device to allow a robotic arm to reach them for pollination.

We offer you the opportunity to build something truly meaningful. Something that will change the fate of billions of people and for the whole planet. We offer a solution that not just reduces the world’s CO2 emission and stabilizes whole regions by providing a reliable food source, it actively can help to decrease the CO2 emissions which are already in our atmosphere today. It can help to, for the first time in decades, increase habitats for wildlife and support the protection of the last remaining biodiversity. We’ve already experienced the satisfying feeling of working on a project with actual substance and you can too! Something you can see and touch and work not just with your mind, but also with your hands on. Take your chance to join our fulfilling work! What kind of people/ skills are you looking for that you could progress best over that weekend (and even maybe beyond)?

We are looking for Python developers, interested in and/or already experienced with machine learning algorithms based on tensor flow (if you know of something better fitting for our purpose than tensor flow we of course would be open for your input). Experience in working with a Raspberry Pi and it’s limited resources would be awesome, but is not necessary.