Special innovation formats are needed for companies to keep pace with the changes in many industrial markets. The VDMA and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft have therefore created a platform to tackle such challenges with the "Hacking Engineering" hackathon.

The pilot of the ideas competition took place in Berlin from May 17 to 19, 2019. It focused on challenges in the fields of data transmission, remote maintenance, augmented reality and predictive maintenance. Four tasks were submitted by the companies Rolls Royce Power Systems, F&S Bondtec Semiconductor and KSB. Eleven international teams with a total of 44 hackers took part in the hackathon, including start-ups and research teams as well as students and young professionals.

Six solutions particularly impressed the jury. The prize for the Rolls Royce Power Systems task was won by the "Always Tunded" team with their concept for sustainable hardware. The "MyDigitalMachine" research team from Fraunhofer IPA impressed the jury in the F&S Bondtec challenge. They developed an analog solution for the maintenance of systems using secure data transmission. The "pumpident" team won the KSB challenge for component recognition in existing systems with their innovative approach to reading nameplates. Team "the Avengers" won the second KSB challenge. They impressed with a machine learning approach for the condition monitoring and maintenance of pumps. Fraunhofer awarded further prizes to the "butterfly valves" and "qbound" teams, which use Fraunhofer technology.

The hackathon marks the start of the joint "Hacking Engineering" project, with which VDMA and Fraunhofer want to open up high-tech start-ups for mechanical engineering. "Together, we want to help ensure that the mechanical engineering industry, as the engine of the German economy, will continue to be a world leader in the future through marketable innovations," explains Dr. Laura Dorfer from VDMA Startup Machine. Tea Böhm from Fraunhofer Venture adds: "Systematic cooperation and technology transfer between high-tech spin-offs from research and industrial SMEs open up special opportunities here. The hackathon is a good starting point for realizing this vision together."