“Edtech Hackathon: Education inside Metaverse 2022” Contest Attracted Huge International Interest

The Hackathon, which took place on the 25-27 of November, was the final "Education inside metaverse 2022" event - a week of virtual educational technologies events. Winners of the "EdTech Hackathon: Education inside metaverse 2022" competition this year were the team of students of Vilnius University Business School - "METAStudents".

During the contest's final round (on the 27th of November), nine teams of finalists competed for the aspiring prize fund: 6,000 euros, valuable mentorship programs, and even unique NFT products.

The EdTech hackathon "Education inside metaverse 2022" has attracted massive attention from enthusiasts and experts in the international education technology sector. More than 300 participants from more than 20 countries registered for the virtual event! During the Hackathon, teams of participants, with the help of 30 professional mentors, presented their ideas, which will help to organize an innovative educational process in the future, a process which various intelligent metauniverse technologies will supplement. Of the 15 formed teams, which entered the contest, nine strongest ones progressed to the final round. Even three teams were fully or partially made up of students studying at the Business School of Vilnius University. The ideas and solutions presented by the young innovators will be realized and, in the future, will become an essential part of intelligent educational technologies and metauniverse in Lithuania and the world.

Winners of the "EdTech Hackathon: Education inside metaverse 2022" competition this year were the team of students of Vilnius University Business School - "METAStudents". The group commented on the unexpected victory very emotionally: "What? We actually won?? - these were our first words after hearing the decision. We are delighted with this victory and accept it as motivation to work and to trust in our abilities. It was completely unexpected, considering that all the teams were solid. "METAstudents" is a name that perfectly suits each of us because the team consists of motivated, creative, hardworking and the most fun people connecting two nations, Lithuania and Ukraine. One of the reasons why "Buzzi" – our idea - was created was to provide a tool for people from different parts of the world to communicate and collaborate for a common goal. "Buzzi", - a simulation of the virtual business world, provides the opportunity to learn through business simulation because we noticed that only theoretical knowledge is not enough. "Buzzi" would give you a virtual space to build a business, learn to suffer financially or fail in a way that would be painful in the real market."

One of the representatives of the hackathon commission, businessman and investor Martynas Kandzeras was happy not only with the number of contestants during the competition but also with the ideas they chose to present: "It's nice to see so many teams from different countries of the world solving educational challenges. And the fascinating thing is that they are trying to innovate in the Metaverse environment, where we will see many opportunities in the coming years. The ideas of all teams were valuable and had the potential for further development. As a result, I am confident that we will see these teams work on the presented projects later."

EdTech week started with the opening virtual international conference, "EdTech conference: education inside metaverse 2022". During it, representatives of educational technologies, metauniverse, education, and business sectors gave presentations. They participated in discussions that revealed the trends of educational technologies, metauniverse and possibilities of their integration into modern educational and business activities in Lithuania and the world. Vytenis Mockus, project manager of "EdTech Hackathon 2022", commented on why the organizers focused the topic of this year's conference and hackathon on the metauniverse: "Metauniverse, as a whole, combines virtual experiences and can contribute to the quality of education of students and other learners and their improvement. This sphere is not widely developed in the education sector in Lithuania, and we believe that the Edtech conference and the hackathon contributed to practical knowledge about the possibilities of using metauniverse technologies and brought these technologies closer to the education sector and the learner."

Event organizers - Vilnius University Business School, "Western Union Lithuania" and the EdTech Center of the National Education Agency. The European Union partially finances the event under the Project "Digital Transformation of Education" (EdTech).