From February 28 to March 2, 2024, ITQ hosted the Smart Green Island Makeathon on Gran Canaria for the seventh time. The 19th Eurocast conference took place at the same time, bringing together over 1,000 participants on the island to promote the digitalization of the future. The main event, the Makeathon, attracted a total of over 900 technology enthusiasts. A total of 587 representatives from industry and research as well as young students registered for the 4-day Makeathon. They came together in 33 teams and worked on various industry challenges within four days on the topics of smart green mobility, smart farming, smart automation, smart production, circular economy and smart warehousing, and developed initial prototypes.

Over 300 schoolchildren between the ages of 6 and 18 took part in the 25 educational workshops held in parallel. The children and young people learned about 3D printers, played with different robots and gained their first programming experience. The workshops were organized by the Canarian foundation Fundación Sergio Alonso, the German Mittelstandsakademie Bayern and students from local schools, who acted as technology coaches.

The organizer Dr. Rainer Stetter, CEO of ITQ, is proud of the internationality of the event: "This year we have managed to bring together 70 different universities and vocational schools. 47 nations, including India, Colombia and North Africa as well as Europe, are working together peacefully. Everyone here, the GenZ together with the boomer generation, is highly motivated to find solutions for the future."

Together with the sponsors of the event, the teams developed 33 prototypes, which they presented during the closing event:

• B&R Industrial Automation tackled the topic of circular economy with a large, interdisciplinary team. Together, the team developed ideas for recycling batteries and worked on concepts ranging from automation to visualization. Prototypes were created for measuring, charging and discharging batteries with the aim of distinguishing functional cells from broken/discharged cells. Any residual energy released was converted into hydrogen, which in turn can be used to recharge the batteries with solar energy.
• The teams from Beckhoff Automation focused on the area of smart home farming. A total of four teams formed the 'Vertical Solutions' challenge and developed a kit for aeroponic plant beds that are analyzed and measured using sensors. The plants are automatically fed using a cobot control and pump system.
• Igus developed various prototypes with cobot integration in five teams on the topic of smart warehousing in order to efficiently remove goods from a warehouse shelf and pack them for shipping. The Igus robots were also used by other teams to detect and sort waste, among other things.
• Together with Murrelektronik, a team developed creative prototypes in shoulder bag format to help fitters find the right cable. With QR codes and 3D printed hangers, the worker can find the right cable efficiently and quickly.
• Vishay supported several teams in the design of prototypes for plant monitoring. The teams developed prototypes to check the quality of Canarian bananas. By using sensors and LEDs, the health of the plant, the temperature and soil moisture as well as the degree of ripeness of the bananas can be recorded.
• Two teams took on another local challenge. They converted an old tractor with a combustion engine to an electric drive with a total of 60 V batteries and a solar module. They also built a hydrogen range extender to increase the tractor's range.

The implementation of the Smart Green Island Makeathon was made possible by ITQ and the financial and content-related support of 39 national and international sponsors.