The pitch was for an invention that detects flaws hidden in the concrete within buildings.
Lise 12 students Hasan Kaya Güneri, Alp Niksarlı, Çağan Meteris, and Anıl Odabaşı won the Earthquake Prevention and Search and Rescue Technologies Hackathon organized by Entertech Istanbul Teknokent. Their idea revolved around detecting the safety of concrete walls. They wanted to contribute to relief efforts and formed an impromptu group for the hackathon. Alp Niksarlı relays the specifics of their success:
“Out of 27 teams and 40 individual applications, the RC group was selected as one of the eight final teams. All eight teams were entirely compromised of university or graduate students with us being the only exception. After we contacted people who have been to earthquake zones, we realized that we needed to focus on a solution that would provide new information rather than something that just processes or transforms information. We pitched an invention that detects flaws hidden in the concrete within buildings. We achieved this detection by combining chemistry and engineering in an interdisciplinary approach to design a tool that is cheap, practical, and reliable.
“We were allotted a total of 48 hours to brainstorm, decide on our idea and then develop it enough to be able to finally pitch the idea to a panel of judges.”
The group donated the prize money to RC earthquake relief efforts to buy container classrooms in earthquake areas.
Published July 2023
