Oli Lipski
SxTech EU is hosting the second of its sextech conferences in Berlin in September this year. The event aims to foster technological innovation and accelerate businesses in sextech, and will this year add a femtech stage, startup zone and femtech solutions within the hackathon.
Inviting 800 participants, 25 exhibitors, 100 global speakers, and 30 startups from around the world, the day long event will take place on the September 14, and is made up of workshops, talks and a sextech/femtech hackathon.
Why add femtech?
Femtech is technology that focuses on women’s health. It can include fertility solutions, pregnancy and nursing care, period tracking apps, women’s sexual wellness, and reproductive system health care.
Due to the intertwined relationship between women’s health and sexual wellness, the event’s organizer Ola Miedzynska told SEXTECHGUIDE that “the two sectors often share the same technology, such as multi-haptic systems, AI, biomimetics, biological vital monitoring systems. For instance, multi-haptic technology is used in vibrators to reproduce sensual touch, as well as for pregnancy belts, which allow partners to feel their babies’ kicks in real-time.”
She goes further to say that while the conference isn’t solely focusing on women’s health or specifically targeted to any specific gender, it does “actively support[s] marginalized groups that often face challenges in bringing their products to market due to some investors who fail to recognise the significance of sexual wellness”.
Talks, workshops and a hackathon
One of the focus areas will be cybersecurity and data transformation. This could be relevant for companies that deal with intimate data, from webcam footage, to search history, to genomic data.
Other key topics will extrapolate how to tackle some of the challenges that sextech entrepreneurs face every day, such as ‘shadow-banning‘.
Last year saw 150 applicants, with only 40 selected to join the hackathon. When asked what progress was made with last year’s winner, a sex worker app called Saferr, Sx Tech Eu explained it was not able to provide continued support for incubation. This year, however, more structured support on incubation is assured.
With space for 100 hackers, the hackathon is free for registration. Entries open on April 1 and themes of this year’s hackathon are:
- Data & Cybersecurity
- Entertainment and Pleasure
- Education
- Health
- Communities
Participants will solve the technological challenges of the conference’s two corporate partners, and the winner will earn an opportunity to join its accelerator programme. It will not be accepting applications from startups that already have projects, but will invite those to the ‘Startup Zone’ to exhibit early-stage ideas on the same floor.
As for the future of Sx Tech Eu, it has plans to collaborate with international partners and “hopefully, by mid-2021, we will launch more structured support along the way of turning the idea into a project.”
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