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U.S. Embassy in Italy fosters innovation in energy efficiency

On December 2nd, 2012 the Winners of the Rome Cleanweb Hackathon were announced.

The concept of the Cleanweb Hackathon, as a collaborative effort to promote sustainable growth and clean energy, was born in the United States. Hackathons usually take place during weekends as competitions among projects created for the occasion that apply information technology in order to solve issues related to climate, energy, water, food, transportation, and land use.

   

The Rome event was strongly supported by the U.S. Embassy in Italy, and was inaugurated by Ambassador Thorne, because of the U.S. Government and Embassy’s focus on promoting the digital economy as a means of achieving economic growth. A recent example is the Green Button Initiative, a White House-catalyzed, industry-led effort that provides electricity customers with easy and secure access to their energy usage information in a consumer-friendly and computer-readable format.

   

Almost 100 developers, designers and experts had worked around the clock during the weekend of Nov 30 – Dec 2 at Roma Tre University in Rome. 17 app teams presented their projects to a full auditorium on Sunday Dec 2nd.
  • The 1st prize of the app competition was awarded to the team “Pool Me Up” who were awarded € 3.500 for their original car/motorbike sharing app.
  • The 2nd prize of € 1.000 was assigned by the jury to the team “Breath-In” for their app for personal mobile environment information.
  • The 3rd prize of € 500 went to the team “Nobutho” for their app for intelligent reuse/recycling.
  • The winners of the additional special challenge “Guerrilla Cyclers Mobile App” offered by platinum sponsor Filas was the team “Drop Share” awarded with € 2.000 for their social app promoting eco-sustainable mobility.
  • Further silver sponsor Amazon Web Services attributed to the #1, #2 and #3 winning teams respectively US$ 1.800, US$ 800 and US$ 400 of credits for Amazon Web Services.

For more information on the competing projects and on winners, please see the following: http://italy.cleanweb.co/2012/12/03/announcing-the-winners-of-the-roma-cleanweb-hackathon/

The U.S. Embassy in Italy, and in particular the U.S. Commercial Service, will continue to promote innovation in energy efficiency in Italy. Please stay tuned for more news on upcoming events. And feel free to contact us for if you have any ideas, questions or concerns about doing business in Italy and Europe. Please contact:

Federico Bevini
Commercial Specialist
U.S. Commercial Service - Milan
Federico.bevini@trade.gov