International CASSINI Hackathon Returns to Slovakia

Eleven (11) teams competed in a challenge where participants had one weekend to create a prototype application. The main goal was to use European Union space programmes to develop innovative solutions for the public. The event was organised by the Industry Branch of the Slovak Space Office, part of SARIO.

The hackathon took place on 7–9 November 2025 at the TECHNICOM University Science Park in Košice. The main themes the teams focused on were sports, tourism, and gaming. Participants primarily worked with Earth observation data from the Copernicus programme or with the European satellite navigation system Galileo.

The top three teams received material prizes and shared a financial award of €5,000 provided by the event’s main partners – the Košice Self-Governing Region and the Košice Region Innovation Centre. The winners were awarded by the Chairman of KSK, Rastislav Trnka.

1st place went to team Synapse 404 with their application GeoQuest, designed to support tourism through interactive tasks at points of interest. 2nd place was awarded to team DAM with Only Fiit, an app focused on the efficient use of community and public sports facilities. 3rd place was taken by team SafeTourMonitor from SPŠE Prešov with Trailwell, an app improving hiking safety in the mountains.

The hackathon took place simultaneously in 10 locations around the world – from New Caledonia, through Finland and Belgium, all the way to Košice. The Slovak Space Office organised the event within the CASSINI platform, an initiative of the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) supporting the space industry.

The Slovak Space Office organises hackathons every year as part of a wider range of activities focused on supporting young talent and building technological startups. The winners have the opportunity to continue developing their project in the Spaceport business incubator, which is also run by the Slovak Space Office.

“Hackathons are an important activity for us in building an innovation ecosystem. They help us not only create new promising teams and startups but also highlight the importance of space technologies across many different sectors of the economy,” said Michal Brichta, Director of the Industry Branch of the Slovak Space Office.

The event was made possible thanks to broad support from partners who provided mentoring, promotional support, or prizes for participants.

The Slovak Space Office is a joint initiative of the Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency (SARIO) and the Ministry of Education, Research, Development and Youth of the Slovak Republic (MŠVVM SR). The Ministry is responsible for the budget, interministerial political coordination, and multilateral international cooperation (European Space Agency – ESA, EU, UN). SARIO covers the implementation side of the agenda – particularly the development of the space ecosystem and local and international partnerships.

Short video available at the following link!