Page 23 - min.vos aug 17
P. 23
LOCAL A13
Monday 17 August 2015
Meet The Startups From The 1st Caribbean Beach Hackathon
ORANJESTAD - In June and ate a better quality of life,
for everybody. In that spirit
August the TEDxAruba we invited geeks, nerds,
designers, creatives, think-
team organized a series of ers and do-ers to partici-
pate in the hackathon and
‘Inspiring Sessions’, these to turn those bright ideas
into brand new Startups.
are mini-events on the In total 5 teams signed up,
that’s 21 fresh minds, work-
road to TEDxAruba ‘Island ing on ways to create – or
improve sustainable hap-
of Sustainable Solutions’. piness on our tiny island,
and beyond.
While TEDxAruba itself will In the end, 5 solid startups
concepts were proposed
focus on sustainability in to thee jury. These were
Mrs. Lindsey Wever (CMB),
the broader sense, ‘Inspir- Ms. Sjeidy Feliciano (ATA)
and Mr. Alex Nieuwmei-
ing Sessions’ focuses spe- jer (Divi Resorts). The prize
to the winning team was
cifically on creating a Start- a complimentary InselAir
ticket for each team mem-
up community for young ber, to any of InselAir’s des-
tinations. In addition, the
professionals here in Aruba winning team would get 3
months of personal guid-
– which could be a cata- ance from Arnaud Collery
– helping them advance
lyst for sustainable solutions their product to the mar-
ket.
on the island. Beach Hackathon Start-
ups:
The first Inspiring Session fo- After 48 hours 5 groups pre-
sented their ideas demos
cused on creating aware- to the jury members in the
Alhambra Ballroom. The
ness of Startups amongst following is a short descrip-
tions of the products they
(young) professionals, presented.
students and local entre- HELPY
‘Helpy’ is a website where
preneurs. The goal was to social projects, companies
and volunteers come to-
inspire the audience by gether.
showing examples of suc- Continued on Page 14
cessful startups, discussing And what better conduit
for creating a startup than
the circumstances that a Hackathon; a competi-
tion where groups get to
lead to their breakthrough develop their startup – from
idea to product – in just 48
and their subsequent im- hours. This became the ba-
sis for the first Beach Hack-
pact on the economy, athon in the Caribbean! It
took place during the Love
both locally and interna- Festival at the Fisherman’s
Hut – in collaboration with
tionally. At end of the ses- the IloveAruba team. The
topic for this hackathon,
sion, audience members was ‘happiness’.
Facilitating the beach
were split up in groups Hackathon was Mr. Arn-
aud Collery, Chief Happi-
and an active brainstorm- ness Officer at Kikai Mining.
Happiness and technol-
session was held to discuss ogy go hand in hand with
the vision of creating a
what was needed to cre- sustainable society where
technology is used to cre-
ate a Startup community in
Aruba. It was an immense-
ly fun and productive exer-
cise.
The second Inspiring Ses-
sion was much more prag-
matic in its approach. The
goal was to take the les-
sons learned in the first In-
spiring Session and have
groups apply these in cre-
ating their own Startups.
