11th CASSINI Hackathon Bulgaria: Space for Water

CASSINI is the European Commission's flagship initiative to support entrepreneurs, start-ups, and SMEs in the space industry, with a €1 billion budget. One of its key actions is the CASSINI Hackathons — held twice a year simultaneously at 10 locations across the continent. Over the past 10 editions, these hackathons have engaged thousands of participants and partners and helped design various novel space-related solutions and launch numerous start-ups.

The 11th CASSINI Hackathon will take place in Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Romania, and Spain between 24th and 26th of April 2026. This year’s theme is  ‘Space for Water’ will tackle urgent challenges in the era of climate change with major social and economic impact — including equitable and efficient access to water and disaster risk monitoring.

Students and professionals in hydro-engineering, computer science, space technologies, and business who are passionate about protecting our planet are invited to join, form teams, and spend an exciting weekend building and pitching innovative water-related solutions using Earth Observation and other data. In Bulgaria these challenges are echoed by problems of water loss in the utilities sector, lack of water in remote villages, but also in municipality central cities, vehement floods with severe damages, polluted Black sea waters, etc.

Participants will benefit from an inspiring programme featuring keynote speakers from EnduroSat and Veolia, dedicated mentors from leading companies and universities in Earth Observation, data science, hydro-engineering, and AI, access to powerful software platforms and resources, open satellite and other data, an expert jury, valuable prizes, good food and company, and direct connections to the European space ecosystem.

This is a unique opportunity to join a vibrant international community, shape and test your ideas, develop real solutions and have them validated by expert feedback, and take your first step toward becoming a space entrepreneur.

Mozaika and Digital Spaces Living Lab are organising the Sofia edition of the event, hosted at JA Startup Hambar, in partnership with Ratio and other organisations.

Register now and be part of the challenge and the journey!