{"id":33957,"date":"2025-12-22T12:59:47","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T10:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clusters.org.ua\/?p=33957"},"modified":"2026-01-02T16:43:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:43:29","slug":"hack-match-1-report-on-the-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clusters.org.ua\/en\/news-en\/hack-match-1-report-on-the-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Hack & Match #1 \u2013 report on the event held on 16 December at KPI"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first Hack&Match event took place at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute on 16 December and was a great conclusion to the year-long activities of EDIH Kyiv Hitech participants, as well as all supporters of Industry 4.0-5.0, the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance and the Association of Industrial Automation of Ukraine (APPAU).  This report contains the main insights and conclusions of the meeting, as well as guidelines for communities for 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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General context. Opening of the event<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Innovation brokerage is one of the key roles of EDIHs (European Digital Innovation Hubs). Unlike other similar events that also include elements of networking and matchmaking (various conferences, meetups, exhibitions, etc.), the format and concept of Hack&Match are based on a highly focused connection of demand <\/strong>(for innovation) with ready-to-use solution offerings. In fact, the very name Hack&Match means: (a) the processes of detailing and profiling specific business and user cases (Hack), and (b) matching market participants with each other (Match) in various configurations. Added to this is a financial component as well \u2013 \u201cwhere to find funding for these innovative solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building an effective format that connects (brokers) all three components is quite a complex and meticulous task for the organizers, since innovations in Industry 4.0 involve many challenging aspects \u2013 diversity (dozens of technologies, markets, and applications), difficulties in accessing industrial customers, gaps between developers focused on global innovations and local, somewhat conservative industries, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event held on December 16 aimed to identify the needs of three market segments \u2013 the agri-food sector, district heating\/thermal energy, and the defense industry \u2013 and to connect them with solutions from leading providers. The financial component was also mentioned, but it was not the main focus. The event moderator, Oleksandr Yurchak (CEO of UCA and APPAU), opened the event with an introduction to the format and objectives, and presented the key partners: the IDEALIST project (where APPAU is a member and where the original name \u2018Hack&Match\u2019 come from) and the EEN-Ukraine consortium (where UCA as is a member), which traditionally supports SME networking and matchmaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event opened with a keynote speech by Nataliia Seminska<\/strong>, CEO of the Science Park \u201cAdditive Technologies,\u201d who presented the park\u2019s activities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After lunch, participants also visited the park\u2019s laboratories. The park specializes in additive technologies for medical prosthetics and today is the largest R&D center and innovation hub in this field in Ukraine. A distinctive feature of the park is that war veterans are not only beneficiaries and users of its activities (prosthetics), but also undergo training and become part of the development team. Participants were deeply impressed by the visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the activities of the Science Park \u201cAdditive Technologies\u201d are a vivid demonstration of how the combination of social business initiatives, education, and science can stimulate the growth of an entirely new market segment (medical prosthetics) and significantly transform processes within higher education institutions, bringing them closer to concrete, applied market needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Oleksandr Yurchak articulated the key takeaway from the Science Park\u2019s experience: <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Can we scale this experience to other universities, regions, and applied dual-use domains?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Presentations by market participants \u2013 key insights<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Maksym Tiutiunnyk<\/strong> (CEO of the Galartesian mineral water plant, APPAU expert) highlighted the latest Industry 4.0 trends that have already penetrated the agri-food industry and presented a number of applied business cases for the food sector. Advanced data processing and the integration of machine learning algorithms are in high demand for applications such as SCADA chart analysis, digital twins \u2013 simulators of food processing equipment \u2013 as well as in maintenance planning processes (preventive maintenance schedules). According to the expert, who has more than 20 years of experience in engineering and operations across various segments of the agri-food industry, there is still a critical shortage of such solutions in most sectors, and customers are largely unaware of the solutions already available on the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anatolii Korzh<\/strong> (Director of the Ardenz plant, Board Member of the Ukrainian District Heating Cluster, hereinafter UHC) presented an ecosystem (holistic) case from the district heating sector. The essence of the case is that municipal (district) heating in Ukraine is highly fragmented \u2013 there are different generation sources, different solutions and standards, and different implementation approaches and architectures. As a result, the key problem lies not<\/strong> in the availability of individual technologies (they do exist), but in the lack of unified, standardized approaches to dispatching, data management, and network control. This is also an issue of community maturity \u2013 technological, project, and market maturity. The UHC formulates a demand for the creation of intelligent mini- and microgrids with open standards that integrate various heat sources and equipment. The key challenge is how to move from chaotic modernization efforts to a managed roadmap for digital and green transformation. De facto, the UHC articulates an ecosystem-level case that requires a comprehensive approach and systematic cooperation among multiple actors<\/strong> \u2013 technology and engineering companies, developers, communities, financial operators, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nadiia Vasylieva<\/strong> (Director of the Institute of Digital Transformation and expert of the Brave1 accelerator) outlined the key challenges of digitalization and automation in the defense industry market. The main barriers to automating defense enterprises are not technological, but systemic<\/strong>: financial instability, procurement, regulation, supply chains, and human resources \u2013 all of which together block the digitalization of products and processes. Nadiia systematically addressed each of these issues: unstable revenues and short-term contracts (which make planning impossible); complex procurement procedures and the absence of long-term framework contracts (which break digital value chains); specific supply chains, cybersecurity requirements, and electronic warfare (EW) considerations that create new demands and radically complicate automation compared to the civilian market; the lack of unified standards, interoperability, and \u201cfast-track\u201d certification pathways, which prevents the creation of standardized and highly scalable solutions that are the norm in NATO countries; and the shortage of skilled developers, along with competition from the civilian IT sector, which slows down the implementation of automation and digitalization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The overarching message of the presentation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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defense enterprises need not point solutions or isolated technological support, but ecosystem-level solutions \u2013 institutional, financial, organizational, and standardization-related<\/strong> \u2013 otherwise scaling and automation will remain fragmented<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Presentations by developers and integrators<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A market leader in the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies, IT-Enterprise, delivered two presentations \u2013 one on the deployment of AI agents in industrial applications, and another on production asset management (maintenance and repairs, MRO). Roman Yavorskyi<\/strong>, the company\u2019s CSO, presented a wide range of AI agents that are already being widely implemented across various sectors of the economy \u2013 from retail and banking to industry and the defense sector. The key points of the presentations by Oleksandr Ochkasov<\/strong> (Head of the R&D Center and leading expert in Asset Performance Management (APM)) were as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n