The Journey to Digithon 2024

Welcome to Hoken Tech

In the startup scene, participating in events and competitions is crucial. It boosts the startup’s visibility and helps the team grow by exploring new places and meeting other entrepreneurs.

Since 2021, the startup Hoken Tech has been applying to Digithon, the largest startup event, where the top 100 startups compete after a tough selection process from hundreds of applications.

This year, Hoken Tech applied again to showcase our startup and our ongoing projects.

In mid-July, we received the outcome of our application. Unfortunately, we were informed that our startup was not selected, so this year we didn’t make it. We’ll try again next year.

Three days before Digithon, we got an unexpected call from the organizers informing us that we were reconsidered.

This year, over 350 applications were submitted, but only 100 startups were admitted, and the rest were declined or placed on a special list. We were informed that ours was the first among the excluded startups.

Thrilled by the good news, we now faced a problem: we only had three days to prepare for our pitch on September 5th in the afternoon.

A quick team update to organize slides, materials, social media, etc., allowed us to fine-tune our project for the presentation event rapidly.

The day of our presentation arrived, and we were all set. However, the CEO of Hoken Tech, Antonella, unexpectedly drew a “stomach virus” card from the Monopoly “Chance” deck, knocking her out.

At this point, all plans changed, but the advantage of startups is their agility. The presentation shifted to Hoken Tech’s CTO to provide technical answers.

Given the event’s scale, many people and entrepreneurs took the opportunity to network, and Hoken Tech did, too, meeting new friends and reconnecting with old ones and partners like Mav Reality with their AdCrowd project.

The final day arrived at Bisceglie’s beautiful Piazza Castello, filled with people and entrepreneurs waiting to announce the winners of this Digithon edition.

Our name wasn’t among the winners — a real pity. However, this defeat is a growth opportunity, with gratitude to the EOS community that supported us worldwide.

Now we look forward to the new year to apply for the next edition.