Azerbaijan’s first-ever water-themed virtual hackathon was held this weekend, organised by the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Hackathon Azerbaijan.

A total of 36 teams comprised of bright young women and men from all around Azerbaijan worked together to come up with tech ideas and solutions to water challenges – from machine learning, flood forecasting apps to intelligent irrigation systems.

The jury, composed of international and national innovation experts and water practitioners, had a difficult task selecting the winning applications.

After careful deliberation they decided to award:

The first prize (5,000 AZN) to Team ‘Aducoman' for a novel procedure to extract fresh water from seawater by using alternative energy sources

The second prize (3,000 AZN) to Team 'Aquahakermaks' for an IoT-based device, which indicates when and how much water is used

And the third prize (2,000 AZN) to Team 'Satetlite' for 'smart irrigation’ to minimize the consumption of water used in agriculture.

The jury also awarded honorable mentions to Team ‘Conwat’ for putting together an irrigation device which collects condensed water and Team ‘Lily’ for their idea to use water-sensitive sensors for more efficient use of rainwater in residential buildings.

Over the coming weeks, the three winning teams will be working together with mentors to bring their ideas and solutions to life.

Numerous partners joined the hackathon, including Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Emergency Situations, ASAN Service, Agrarian Science and Innovation Center, Azerbaijan Amelioration and Water Farm Open Joint Stock Company, Cyber Security Academy, Sumaks, Techland, Caspian European Club, Innoland, eaziSTART, Next Step Innovations Center, Idrak, Global Programmers Club, GFG Baku, Yer, Ilk Addimlar, AzCloud and AzInTelecom, and Data Processing Center.