First Cross-Industry Hackathon Held in Puerto Montt, Chile: Five Teams Use AI to Address Salmon Farming and Mining Challenges

On Tuesday, October 20, 2026, the Cross-Industry Hackatón 2026 was held at the facilities of Empormontt in Puerto Montt, Chile, bringing together developers, startups, company representatives and production sector figures to develop prototype solutions using artificial intelligence tools around specific challenges in salmon farming and mining. The event was organized by Këtrawa, executed through Incubadora Volcanes, and supported by Corfo and the Anacleto Angelini Innovation Center of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

During the day's pitch session, five solutions focused on automation, environmental compliance, territorial management and information analysis were recognized. The five selected teams were Katta, Progerlabs, AquAI, KHW and Typebold. The evaluation criteria included understanding of the problem, the proposed solution, technical component, impact and pilot feasibility.

The tool developed by Katta targets the automation of audit and environmental compliance processes: it can upload regulatory documents, extract requirements, generate on-site verification checklists and subsequently standardize inspection reports; the system also considers recording evidence via mobile devices and is designed for facilities where connectivity may be limited—a common situation in operations located in remote areas.

Progerlabs presented a territorial intelligence platform that seeks to integrate geographic information and contextual data related to communities, existing projects and areas of influence, facilitating the analysis of variables related to reputation, efficiency and compliance. The solution includes project tracking and early warning generation, with the goal of supporting decision-making based on information that is typically scattered across different sources.

AquAI developed a socio-environmental monitoring system capable of cross-analyzing information from different stakeholders, social networks, media and other sources, aimed at identifying early signals and building territorial interpretations to anticipate situations and support more timely responses.

KHW introduced an artificial intelligence-based socio-environmental platform designed to gather information from different environmental and territorial sources and turn it into traceable decision-making inputs. The solution focuses on facilitating the analysis of variables related to projects, communities and compliance.

Typebold, meanwhile, tackled one of the most time-consuming stages of regulatory management—the review of massive volumes of documents. Its solution can upload background materials, automatically identify obligations and requirements, leaving the main work to professionals to verify the results. During the presentation, the team gave an example: a review that might originally take about 120 hours could be shortened to about 3 hours with this type of automation.

The organizers said the event is the first milestone of a platform that seeks to create intersections between aquaculture, mining and technology, connecting the specific needs of industry with the innovation and development capabilities already present in the region. During the event, teams built prototypes over a day of intensive development around the problems posed by companies, using technological infrastructure and artificial intelligence tools. The initiative also proposes that the most feasible solutions can subsequently continue to evolve and advance to the industrial pilot stage.

Among the supporters, Huawei Cloud provided the technological infrastructure and mentoring for prototype development; SalmonChile helped connect the teams with the challenges posed by the aquaculture industry, with salmon farming companies Invermar and Marine Farm participating in this process. Also participating as partners were Minnovex, the Municipality of Puerto Montt, Telsur and JBT Marel.

Felipe Díaz, Community Affairs Director at SalmonChile, said at the opening ceremony that one of the goals is to turn technological development into proposals that can be applied to real problems in the industry. "The expectation is to generate as many ideas and proposals as possible around the challenges posed, so that artificial intelligence serves concrete improvements in community work, sustainability, productivity and efficiency," he said. He added that the industry has been gradually introducing technological tools in areas such as production, environment, health and logistics, and that this type of event helps bring new capabilities closer to the specific needs of companies.

Víctor Sánchez Redlich, Regional Director of Corfo Los Lagos, said the hackathon connects technological capabilities with the specific needs of companies in the region and is an initiative not previously seen in the Los Lagos region. "Corfo, when it started, around the 1930s, drove the country's industrialization. Today we are making it technological, so we must be where innovation and technology are. We have high expectations for the participation of those interested in developing solutions for the current needs of companies in southern Chile," he said.