The outstanding teams for the 2023 International Hackathon of the Presidential Hackathon have been announced! This year's International Hackathon received submissions from over 30 countries, a total of 60 projects, which set a new record, said the Ministry of Digital Affairs (moda) today (6th). The final selection includes two outstanding teams: HysonTech, a joint team of Indian and Taiwanese members, with their proposal for an intelligent aquaculture system, and the Thai team Refill City, with their innovative app promoting the reuse of plastic water bottles. The members of these two teams will attend the awards ceremony on September 24, 2023, where President Tsai Ing-wen will publicly recognize their achievements.

The moda indicated that the HysonTech team has developed FarmABetterFish, an intelligent aquaculture system utilizing IoT and AI, with the theme "Digital Transformation for Sustainable Aquaculture Production." This system is expected to save daily work hours, increase production, enable remote monitoring of fish farm environments, and reduce transaction risks, thereby promoting the concept of sustainable development of marine resources.

On the other hand, the Refill City team has designed the lively and engaging Re-Fill City app with the theme "Refill City: Empowering Sustainable Water Consumption for a Greener Future." They collaborate with businesses and retailers to encourage people to reuse plastic water bottles through advertisements, tax incentives, and free access to clean drinking water, contributing to environmental sustainability.

Since 2019, it has been the fifth year of the International Hackathon of the Presidential Hackathon, the moda explained. It encourages global democratic partners to utilize open data, cross-domain collaboration, and creative thinking to find innovative solutions to public issues.

This year, the theme of International Hackathon is "Free the Future: Open, Digital & Green" and received a record-breaking 60 submissions from 34 countries. This highlights the global interest in democratic, digital, and net-zero issues. After two months of professional guidance and exchange, two outstanding teams were selected through joint evaluation by international committee members.

The moda will continue to promote domestic and global community engagement and cross-border cooperation in digital means through the Presidential Hackathon and the International Hackathon. These competitions boost people from diverse backgrounds to exchange and engage in dialogue, bringing wisdom and passion together. This will result in more innovative and socially impactful projects in the future, fostering ongoing exchanges between Taiwan and the international community. The awards ceremony is scheduled to take place on September 24th at 2:00 PM at the Office of the President and will be live-streamed on the Presidential Hackathon and the moda's official YouTube channels.