Participation in the Lineage Hackathon 2024 competition

On a cold November morning, four members of our growing team took a trip to Amsterdam to represent Leaf.it in our next challenge: the 2024 Lineage Hackathon competition, focusing on Food Chain Innovations against food waste. Although the theme of the event was not a perfect fit with our mission, the organizers insisted on our participation.

The competition took place in the stunning Nemo Science Museum, and started off - following a nice breakfast - with a short speech from one of the the keynote speakers of the event, Toine Timmermans, founder of the prestigious Samen Tegen Voedselverspilling foundation. Then, after the introduction of the five judges, the pitches began. We competed with 16 other teams in 5 minute long pitches that were followed by 5 minute Q&A sessions. This proved to be a valuable experience, and a challenge that our team took exceptionally well, signified by the insightful, deliberate questions we got from the judges, and their supportive feedback later on.

Once all teams finished their pitches, and the judges sat together to discuss the winning team, a celebratory announcement crowned the event. While we had the aspirations to win, we understood that, as our product is not centered around food waste, our chances to rank high were not the best. In the end, although we did not win, later conversations with the judges revealed that the Leaf.it was one of the runner ups out of the 17 teams. We are incredibly proud of our talented and dedicated team who not only represented Leaf.it, but outperformed many other start-ups in such a prestigious competition. 

Of course, the praise was only a part of the experience our team took away from the event. We also got the chance to meet other young, aspirational entrepreneurs, as well as connect with the esteemed members of the jury, and get in-depth feedback from them. Our conversation with Sean Vanderelzen, the president of Lineage Europe, was especially insightful, and his genuine interest and excitement for our product was particularly inspiring to continue dreaming big with Leaf.it. We are grateful to Lineage for the chance to prove ourselves in this competition and hope to connect again in the future as a fully developed social start-up!

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