HAL2025 ideas competition unleashes innovative power
The HAL2025 ideas competition was officially launched on June 3, 2024 in the Halle (Saale) Planetarium. The aim of the first phase of the competition was to look for ideas that could revolutionize the development of autonomous, intelligent systems in the swarm with groundbreaking technology.
Individuals, universities, research institutions, start-ups and companies were eligible to take part. The competition encouraged a wide range of participants to submit their innovative ideas by the deadline of August 31, 2024. The response was overwhelming: 65 promising ideas were received, demonstrating the success and interest in this unique competition.
“We are delighted with the variety and quality of the ideas submitted,” says Dr. Eva-Maria Heinke, Project Manager at the Cyberagentur. “This response shows that the topic of ‘autonomous intelligent systems in a swarm’ is attracting a great deal of interest in Germany and that many innovative minds are working on the future of this technology.”
The competition’s website, https://idee.cyberagentur.de, recorded an impressive number of hits during the submission phase, and activity on social media platforms was also exceptionally high. “This underlines the great public interest and the relevance of the topic, which goes far beyond specialist circles,” says the scientist and head of the Autonomous Intelligent Systems unit at the Cyberagentur.
Now that the submission phase is over, the work of the internal jury, which is made up of scientists from various disciplines, will begin in order to carefully examine the variety of submissions from different perspectives. The three finalists will be selected by November 2024 and will each be given a budget of 40,000 euros from December to develop their idea into a more comprehensive concept.
In May 2025, a grand jury will evaluate the concepts submitted and select the best concept as the winner of the competition. The winning concept will receive prize money of 100,000 euros and will also serve as the basis for a Cyberagentur research project. The other two finalists will share prize money totaling 50,000 euros. The winners will be announced in the third quarter of 2025.
“We are delighted with the high level of interest, which exceeded our expectations,” emphasizes Dr. Eva-Maria Heinke. “Many of the ideas submitted will certainly have the potential to play a decisive role in shaping the future of autonomous systems.”
The HAL2025 ideas competition thus opened up a new way of designing research projects. The Cyberagentur sees HAL2025 as opening up new opportunities to shape Germany’s technological sovereignty and strengthen its security infrastructures.
Further information on the landing page: https://idee.cyberagentur.de