Written by Design Terminal
The GroundUP Hackathon in Budapest, held on 21 March 2026, was designed as a practical innovation activity under Horizon Europe to help young innovators turn promising ideas into solution-oriented concepts for a safer society. Built around the theme “CBRNE Innovations for a Safer Society”, the event aimed to connect academic talent with real-world challenges in public safety, environmental protection, emergency preparedness, and crisis response.
The wider hackathon methodology was built to support idea validation, product thinking, pitch development, and progression towards the GroundUP mentoring programme. The Budapest agenda reflected this ambition clearly. Participants moved through a structured day of registration, opening remarks, mentoring sessions, hacking, pitch refinement, project submission, and final competition. The format was designed not only to encourage creativity but also to help teams transform their ideas into convincing and relevant project proposals.
The GroundUP Hackathon in Budapest brought together 22 participants who worked in 7 teams on challenge-driven solutions linked to the wider CBRNE innovation field. The event attracted participants from four countries, Slovakia, Serbia, Romania, and Hungary, and several of the teams reflected a genuinely multinational spirit. The strong participation of students and young innovators from the University of Nyíregyháza and the University of Debrecen was particularly notable, while the event also welcomed one online participant joining from Portugal. This diversity underlined one of GroundUP’s core objectives, namely to strengthen regional cooperation and connect talent across borders.
The seven teams presented a diverse set of concepts addressing different aspects of innovation within the wider CBRNE and safety field. Their ideas reflected a broad mix of technological, health-related, and resilience-oriented approaches, showing how participants interpreted the challenge from multiple perspectives. Overall, the projects demonstrated strong creativity, practical relevance, and clear potential for further development through targeted mentoring and support. What stood out during the Budapest hackathon was not only the number of participants but the quality and variety of the ideas developed. The teams worked on topics ranging from biological defence and health-related innovation to industrial leak detection, wearable sensing, disaster intelligence, and advanced detection technologies. This demonstrated the breadth of the GroundUP approach and the ability of young innovators to interpret CBRNE-related challenges in practical, interdisciplinary ways.
A major strength of the event was its multidisciplinary mentoring pool. The GroundUP hackathon framework foresees at least six mentors per event, combining business and technical expertise to support both scientific feasibility and market relevance. In Budapest, this was realised through a strong mix of on-site and online mentors. Attila Wootsch of Privanova supported teams on business development, financial planning, go-to-market strategy, fundraising, chemistry, and radiological and nuclear safety. Dániel Rémai of LUPS contributed expertise in counter-terrorism and medical response. Ivan Lazović from the University of Belgrade, Institute of Nuclear Sciences “Vinča”, Laboratory for Thermal Engineering and Energy, contributed academic and technical expertise to the mentoring process. Radovan Karkalić, Professor at the Military Academy of Belgrade, advised on chemical and radiological CBRNE fields and personal protective equipment. Online, Brendan McGlynn of Scorpion Networks Ltd. provided CBRNE expertise, Nikola Vasovic of Varadis Ltd. contributed sensor startup and field knowledge, and Ana Branković of UCPS supported teams with biological expertise.
The subjects suggested for the hackathon were equally broad and relevant. Participants were encouraged to work on practical and scalable civil CBRNE solutions such as low-cost detection and monitoring systems, digital tools for emergency communication, smart protective equipment, environmentally friendly decontamination methods, AI-based risk assessment tools, training and education concepts, cross-border safety solutions, and biosensor or diagnostic innovations for biological threats.
The Budapest teams reflected this scope well. Their proposed concepts included AI-supported detection and decision-support systems, industrial hazardous leak monitoring, autonomous crisis intelligence platforms, wearable monitoring concepts, bio-chemical detection solutions, and biological threat detection tools.
The next step is especially important for the most promising teams. Based on their performance and innovation potential, the best projects will be selected for the GroundUP mentoring programme, where they will receive further support to develop their concepts, explore market relevance, and strengthen their pathway towards implementation. In this way, the Budapest hackathon not only celebrated ideas but also created concrete opportunities for selected teams to continue their innovation journey within the wider GroundUP ecosystem.
