Hackathon: Feeding the Future Ghent

Girls 14-19: Tackle real food security challenges! Work with ILVO researchers in a 2-day STEM hackathon & pitch at Mutation Festival. Are you ready to shape the future of how Europe eats? Across the European Union, women make up half the workforce but remain a fraction of those designing the technology that grows, moves, stores, and sells our food. We're here to change that. Join us for Feeding the Future Gent, an immersive two-day hackathon exclusively for girls aged 14 to 19. This isn't just about learning; it's about doing. You'll tackle real-world food security and safety challenges alongside actual scientists, and then build and pitch your tech solutions live to a festival audience. Because when girls hold the laptops and design the solutions, the future of food changes for everyone. Please note that the day 1 event location is ILVO (Brusselsesteenweg 370, 9090 Merelbeke-Melle, Belgium) Participation is obligatory for the two days Are you a girl age 14 to 19 who like solving real challenges? Learn together in this hackathon and solve one of these 2 challenges: Challenge Track 1: Improving soil quality against extreme weather driven by climate change. Challenge Track 2: Short chains: ten kilometres, not ten thousand. Digital tools that connect local producers to local eaters. Prizes: 1st place: 500 euros 2nd place: 300 euros 3rd place: 200 euros Agenda DAY 1 — Friday 20 November · ILVO, Melle· “See the problem” • 09:00 - 09:30: Introduction to the hackathon and Girls Go STEM program by EIT Food & EIT Digital. • 09:30 - 10:30: “Meet the problem” — three 15-minute case talks, one per challenge track, and one inspirational case • 10:30 - 10:45: Small break • 10:45 - 12:00: Tour of the robots + small demonstration (e.g. autonomous sampling with the SQAT robot) on an available ILVO field • 12:00 - 13:00: Lunch break:Lunch with researchers: four ILVO women researchers rotate among tables • 13:00 - 15:00: Supervised completion of the Girls Go STEM thematic course: Feeding the Future: Tech Solutions for Food Security and Safety. • 15:00 - 15:30: Break • 15:30 - 16:30: Challenge launch, team formation, and teamwork for the GGS challenge. Problem-framing sprint: Each team writes one problem sentence and has it challenged by a mentor Ideation: divergent thinking, three candidate ideas per team • 16:30 - 17:00: Final quiz; facilitators will be on hand, with an immediate retake slot for anyone scoring below 75% • 17:30 Optional: Concert at Wintercircus - Mutation Festival DAY 2 — Saturday 21 November · Wintercircus, Ghent · Mutation Festival ·“Solve it in public” • 09:00 - 09:15: Arrival, team stand-up, goal for the day • 09:15 - 10:00: Converge: each team picks one idea and defines what it will build; the second course-completion retake slot runs in parallel • 10:00 - 11:30: Build sprint 1 with rotating mentor clinics — data, business model, design, food science • 11:30 - 12:30: Maker session in the festival workshop space: physical prototyping • 12:30 - 13:30: Lunch and free exploration of the Mutation Festival expo • 13:30 - 15:00: Build sprint 2 and pitch coaching — structure, story, stage presence • 15:00 - 16:00: Dry-run pitches with structured peer feedback against the published rubric • 16:00 - 17:00: PUBLIC PITCH FINAL on the festival stage — 2 min per team, with a jury of five • 17:00 - 17:30: Jury deliberation, with a “what next in STEM” panel running alongside • 17:30 - 18:00 Award ceremony, certificates, group photograph • 18:00 Optional: Concert at Wintercircus - Mutation Festival