SIKA Hackathon: 4 Years Connecting Young Talent, Engineering and Innovation
How we helped transform Sika’s long-running Prontuario Awards into an open innovation experience connecting the next generation of engineers with industry.
From a traditional award to an open innovation experience
How can an industrial company connect with the next generation of talent, introduce its technologies and encourage innovation in a different way?
Since 2022, My Tech Plan has worked with Sika on developing and organising the SIKA Hackathon, a project that shows how a corporate event can become a strategic tool for connecting companies, universities and talent.
The initiative grew out of the long-running Sika Prontuario Awards, a competition celebrating its 25th edition in 2026. The aim was to refresh the programme with new methodologies, technological tools and collaborative learning experiences.
The result is a hackathon that combines engineering, creativity, training and competition in a format designed for participants to learn, experiment and discover Sika’s technologies first-hand.
Much more than organising a hackathon
Over the past four years, My Tech Plan has supported Sika in designing, planning and delivering the entire experience, combining strategy, creativity, storytelling and event production.
Our involvement spans every stage of the project:
- Strategy and concept development: designing the format, planning the competition, participation activities and attendee experience.
- Storytelling and audiovisual production: turning each edition’s engineering challenge into an original animated story, revealed as a surprise during the event to immerse participants in their mission.
- Talent outreach: working with universities, running communication campaigns and managing registrations.
- Training and content: coordinating webinars and masterclasses on innovation, artificial intelligence, materials and new technologies.
- Participant management: building multidisciplinary teams, handling communications and coordinating logistics.
- End-to-end production: managing the venue, suppliers, schedule, resources and delivery on the day.
- Mentoring and assessment: coordinating Sika experts, industry professionals and jury members.
- Communications: creating content, digital materials and coverage of the project.
Everything follows one principle: technology and innovation are best understood through hands-on experience.
Extraordinary challenges that develop real skills
One of the SIKA Hackathon’s most distinctive features is its creative approach: dystopian challenges.
Rather than conventional academic exercises, each edition invites students to solve extraordinary challenges that require them to apply technical knowledge, select materials and explore innovative solutions.
We have had to transport mammoths, travel around the world in three hours, create racing vehicles for mermen and mermaids and, this year, rescue an injured animal from an antenna on the Moon.
Every challenge begins with a story.
The challenges are devised by Cristina Alía, Deputy Director of Innovation, Knowledge Transfer and Entrepreneurship at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería y Diseño Industrial (ETSIDI) and a lecturer at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), in the form of an academic problem.
One of My Tech Plan’s contributions each year is to adapt that technical challenge into an animated video, creating an original audiovisual narrative that turns the challenge into an exciting mission.
The video premieres as a surprise during the event, making it one of the day’s most memorable moments. Through storytelling and animation, we spark curiosity, build anticipation and immerse all participants in the world of the challenge before they start working.
This combination of creativity, technology and technical knowledge is a defining feature of the SIKA Hackathon.
Although the scenarios are fictional, the skills being tested are real: industrial design, materials selection, technical feasibility, sustainability, critical thinking, teamwork and project communication.
The students, who meet for the first time that day, work together in teams during an intensive day, supported by specialist mentors, before presenting their solutions to a jury of professionals and senior leaders from academia and industry.
SIKA Hackathon 2026: a rescue mission on the Moon
The 2026 edition, held in Madrid, took the challenge all the way to the Moon.
Under the theme “Design the system that will make the impossible possible”, Mission SIK_26: Rescue on the Moon presented participants with an engineering challenge in extreme conditions.
The task was to design a system capable of reaching a creature trapped on a lunar antenna, rescuing it without causing harm and returning it safely to its station.
Teams had to develop their proposals from scratch, making decisions about design, materials, adhesives, mechanical systems and technical feasibility, using Sika solutions to overcome the difficulties of the lunar environment.
Results from the 2026 edition
- 48 engineering students took part.
- 6 Spanish universities were represented.
- 12 teams and projects were developed during the competition.
- 5 specialist mentors supported participants.
- 11 industry and university professionals served on the jury.
- €7,500 in prizes went to the three best projects.
The €6,000 first prize went to SIKARISTA, a robotic vehicle designed to travel across the lunar surface, climb up to an antenna and complete the rescue mission. The proposal integrated 14 Sika technological solutions.
Beyond the competition, the event allowed students to discover real applications of Sika’s technologies, receive personalised mentoring and connect with professionals from industrial companies.
The experience combines practical learning, collaboration and networking, bringing future engineers closer to the challenges and opportunities of industry.
More on the 2026 edition: ETSIDI–UPM: the winning students · Sika: SIKARISTA and the lunar rescue mission · CIC Construcción: the winning autonomous rescue system.
A collaboration that evolves with every edition
The continuity of the SIKA Hackathon allows us to improve and refresh the experience year after year, introducing new tools, training content and innovation methodologies.
Our artificial intelligence expertise has become particularly valuable in recent years. AI training for design and research has encouraged more creative proposals and helped students bring their presentations to a high academic standard in record time.
Over these four years, we have worked to establish a format that brings academic knowledge closer to industrial challenges and gives students an opportunity to develop professional skills in a collaborative setting.
From creative concept development and audiovisual production to recruiting participants from universities across the country and coordinating the entire event, each edition is an opportunity to keep innovating in how companies and talent connect.
For Sika, the initiative is an opportunity to strengthen its relationship with the university ecosystem, showcase its technological solutions and build connections with the next generation of professionals.
A project that shows how a corporate event can become a platform for innovation, training, employer branding and connections with talent.
Four years building a relationship of trust
At My Tech Plan, we believe a project’s success is measured not only by what happens during the event, but also by its ability to create long-term value.
Our collaboration with Sika shows how a sustained relationship makes it possible to evolve a format consistently, improve its delivery and develop experiences aligned with a company’s strategic objectives.
As Luis Carlos Gutiérrez Pascual, Communications Manager at Sika, puts it:
We have run several student hackathons with My Tech Plan, and they have all been very successful. Much of that success comes from the team’s deep understanding of how these events work and the dynamics involved. I highly recommend them.
Our role as a strategic partner is to turn an idea into a well-designed, coordinated and expertly delivered experience, taking care of both corporate objectives and each participant’s experience.
Want to organise a hackathon for your company?
A hackathon can help you encourage innovation, connect with specialist talent, strengthen your employer brand or involve your team in tackling new challenges.
My Tech Plan designs and produces tailored corporate hackathons, from strategy and creative concept development to participant outreach, audiovisual production and delivery of the entire event.
Tell us what you want to achieve, and we will design the experience to make it possible.