The Smart Cities Hackathon by Plug and Play Morocco, in partnership with SADV (Société d'aménagement et de développement vert, OCP Group) and Enactus Morocco (Students and Young leaders non-profit organisation) will take place in July 2021. The two and a half days of competition will be held in StartGate, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University’s innovation hub. The prestigious academic institution UM6P supports this initiative with the mission of "Learning by Doing".

About Plug and Play

Plug and Play is a global innovation platform. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we have built accelerator programs, corporate innovation services, and an in-house VC to make technological advancement progress faster than ever before. Since inception in 2006, our programs have expanded worldwide to include a presence in over 35 locations globally, giving startups the necessary resources to succeed in Silicon Valley and beyond. With over 30,000 startups and 500 official corporate partners, we have created the ultimate startup ecosystem in many industries. Companies in our community have raised over $9 billion in funding, with successful portfolio exits including Dropbox, Guardant Health, Honey, Lending Club, and PayPal. For more information, visit https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/

About StartGate

The platform, launched earlier in 2020, hosts several startup accelerators and innovation laboratories. StartGate gives access to a multitude of living labs and full sized experimentation platforms for startups to develop their MVP and get support from experts in their respective fields.

About Enactus Morocco

Enactus is the world’s largest experiential learning platform supporting youth in 35 countries through training and mentorship programs in order to develop innovative, high impact projects that solve social challenges in their communities since 1975. In Morocco, Enactus was implemented in 2003 as a local based NGO affiliated to Enactus Global. Enactus Morocco contributes to the transformation of Moroccan entrepreneurial ecosystem, by engaging young leaders, the academic world, companies with social responsibility and public authorities for a strong, sustainable and inclusive impact.

About the Hackathon

The Smart Cities Hackathon addresses three challenges set by SADV, the green city planning and development company, building the new city of Ben Guerir. SADV (Green Planning and Development Company) holds the vision of creating a bridge between the city of Ben Guerir, its population and the green city centred around the Mohamed VI Polytechnic University and OCP Group’s multiple experimental sites. The SADV has identified three main challenges, which require the use of innovative thinking and bold conceptualisation. Plug and Play Morocco acts as SADV’s partner in innovation by inviting students and entrepreneurs from multiple backgrounds to join a two days intensive idea generation competition, a hackathon.

Plug and Play brings in their expertise in organising such events and sourcing the right talent to procure exploitable solutions to their partner, thus allowing them to implement innovative technologies to their operations.

Participating teams will present a solution to one of the three following challenges:

Green Mobility: Integrated urban means of transporting people and goods. Problem Statement: How to make Ben Guerir a city of pedestrians and sustainable mobility?
Real Estate and Construction: Sustainable and efficient residential and commercial building infrastructure. Problem Statement: How to build and manage a modern real estate and commercial park for a population with modest incomes? Variables include construction costs, energy efficiency and optimisation.
New sustainable watering techniques: scarce resource management and resource utilisation optimisation. Problem Statement: How to transform Ben Guerir into a city model of water retention and management?

Who can participate:

Any individual holding at least a high school diploma and with knowledge in either of these areas: coding, business strategy, architecture, urban planning, water management, sustainable construction, energy efficiency and resource management, marketing, finance, entrepreneurship, design thinking, and pricing strategies.
Any team of maximum 3 teammates with complementary skill sets.
Executives and "porteurs de projet" with solutions for one of the pre-set challenges.
PhD students from any Moroccan university with knowledge in one of the pre-set areas of interest (challenges set by SADV).

Rewards

The winning team(s) will be awarded a place in the very exclusive acceleration program by Plug and Play Morocco batch 2, which will be held in StartGate from September 3rd until December 10th.

The award also includes a full sized testing of the winning team’s solution for one of the pre-set challenges. SADV engages itself to follow up with a pilot project, guiding the winning team through the product/service testing phase and implementation.

This process can eventually lead to a commercial agreement after the startup (winning team) goes through an incubation period by Plug and Play Morocco.

Smart Cities Hackathon by Plug and Play Morocco

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