On November 21-22, 2019, UFAZ fourth-year Geosciences Engineering students Rashad Nagiyev and Leman Aliyeva and fourth-year Oil&Gas Engineering students Sabuhi Ibrahimli and Ayan Ibrahimova participated in the fifth edition of “24H de l’innovation au centre de la Terre” (24 hours of innovation at the center of the Earth), a hackathon organized by Pole Avenia, Geosciences Innovation Valley held in Pau Business School (Pau, France).

More than 140 students from 14 different schools came together to solve 16 challenges proposed by 15 companies. Integrated teams of students with various and complementary profiles (Electronics, mechanical, computer science, geology, business, marketing, design...) worked on challenges proposed by companies. The teams were accompanied by professionals during the hackathon and at the end of the 24 hours-contest, presented a solution in front of 4 juries, namely Pierre-Yves Dequirez, Associate Professor of IFP School, Michel Seranne,  CNRS  Researcher at Geosciences Montpellier and Executive Secretary at Terinov, Monique Le Guen Executive Expert of Mine-Geology at Eramet, and Pierre Vinour, Co-founder of CVA.  

“Les Cons Primes” team won the first place with their “Geostock” project and was awarded by Schlumberger, followed by “Les Plenders” and “Geopocket” teams, who held the 2nd and 3rd place and awarded by TOTAL and EFP respectively.

Now that students are back to Baku, we are sharing their warmest impressions of the hackathon:

Rashad Naghiyev, UFAZ fourth-year Geosciences Engineering student:

The topic of our team, “Offshore Geophysics”, was quite interesting and we did our best to solve it. Although all my team members spoke in fluent French, the experience I got was amazing. We were involved in another culture and different atmosphere, we experienced different mindsets, built lots of friendships, and connected with foreign companies. During the closing ceremony we were awarded with "The Most Innovative Idea" prize.

Laman Aliyeva, UFAZ fourth-year Geosciences Engineering student:

The event was huge enough - about 150 students have participated. On the first day, we were informed about the program, as well as the problems to be solved. We were divided into teams of 9 students. Each team had a coach and ours was from Schlumberger. With their help we were directed in which way to approach the problem. It was an excellent opportunity to participate in the team of Francophones. Our team received “The Best Application” award.

Ayan Ibrahimova, fourth-year Oil & Gas Engineering student:

The  biggest advantage of the competition for me was an excellent teamwork. Each member of our team, with a great sense of responsibility, tried to help other teammates.  We were supposed to choose one topic out of 16 challenges proposed. The name of our project was "Detection of Sea Accidents". We won the "Cohesive Team" award for having the best solution as a team.

Səbuhi Ibrahimli, fourth-year Oil & Gas Engineering student:

Participating in this hackathon was a great experience for each of us. The name of our project was "Borehole Imaging". Borehole imaging refers to those logging and data-processing methods that are used to produce centimeter-scale images of the borehole wall and the rocks that make it up. This process usually takes a long time, so we were supposed to write an algorithm to reduce the time as much as possible to make the work of specialists easier. As a result, we received “The Best Application” award.

Pole Avenia, located in Pau in southwest France, is the only French competitiveness cluster in the geosciences sector. It is a unique research potential in France, bringing together more than

4000 geoscience researchers (CSTJF, Institut Carnot ISIFOR, Bordeaux and Pau Universities…) in the Aquitaine region and even across the entire country (BRGM, IFPEN, INERIS…), more than 100 industry partners including, world leaders in energy (Total, GDF Suez, EDF, Vermilion…) and local SMEs and MSEs (INT, Drillstar Industries, Well Staff, Varel Europe, SMP…).

"24 hours of innovation at the center of the Earth" hackathon first started in 2015 and it is the 5th year that the hackathon is being organized.

To recall, this 2019 hackathon is organized with the support of the French companies TOTAL and Schlumberger.