The second edition of the Innovation Hack Award brought four finalist projects and one winner to the stage of the OneBeat Conference.
Behind the pitches and dossiers presented to the jury lies an intense journey made of quick decisions, shared ideas, impromptu calls, moments of discussion, and an enthusiasm that ran through the entire hackathon period.
To understand what an experience like the IHA feels like from the participants’ perspective, we asked the finalist teams to tell us about their journey: how they organized their work, the moments that shaped the direction of the project, and what they learned by collaborating remotely in such a short time.
A journey into the creative processes and the energy that gave shape to the ideas presented on stage.
Behind the scenes: the teams’ stories
- What insight sparked this idea?
The idea came from observing how much time, resources, and expertise are required to cover the entire Functional Safety lifecycle, that is, the set of processes and standards that ensure a system reacts safely in the event of failures or anomalies. Each project requires years of work, the production of numerous work products, continuous reviews, and an extremely high level of accuracy. From this came the insight to explore how new Artificial Intelligence technologies could support highly complex activities, complementing the human role rather than replacing it. The goal was to make processes more robust, consistent, and sustainable over time, not just faster. -FuSAI Team
- What was the most challenging moment?
Aligning very different skill sets within the team, even though it consisted of just two people. We came from different backgrounds and, at first, we didn’t speak the same “language”. Turning this diversity into a strength required time, constant discussion, and the ability to simplify complex concepts. Once we found a common language, collaboration became much more effective and the project made a real leap forward. -SynthRiders Team
- What challenges did you face, and when did the turning point come?
The main challenge was managing a high level of informational complexity: structured, heterogeneous documents that were often difficult to interpret consistently. This required significant analytical work and a clear definition of roles within the process. The turning point came when we managed to better structure the workflow and create a shared knowledge base. From that moment on, the system began to behave in a more stable and consistent way, allowing us to focus on the quality of the outcome. -GEN T Team
- What was it like having AI as a work companion?
We mainly worked with LLMs, Artificial Intelligence models trained on vast amounts of text to understand and generate language in advanced ways. We used them for brainstorming, validating some architectural choices, and especially for documentation. In a sense, it was a “meta” experience: using GenAI to document a project that is itself about GenAI. -LuckyReLU Team
- What was it like collaborating as a team? Did you already know each other?
Collaboration was one of the most positive aspects of the experience. Some of us had worked together before, others less so, but the project encouraged continuous exchange across different areas of expertise: test engineering, system design, AI, and architecture. The diversity of perspectives was essential in reaching a solid, realistic solution, and it made teamwork one of the project’s true strengths. -GEN T Team
The essence of the initiative
The teams’ words capture the essence of the IHA: an opportunity for discussion, growth, and shared creativity, where ideas are born from collaboration and gain strength through diversity of perspectives.