Romania’s first hackathon on rails: Iasi Bucharest Timisoara! Many hours on a moving train. We designed Manoo, a circular-economy app that lets city dwellers lend rarely used objects to neighbors.
And we won!
The idea was simple on paper. A Sustainability Express challenge: almost 24 hours on the road, building an app by teaming up with total strangers. My first reaction was: that’s too much! I went anyway.
The team was three people who had never built anything together: Andrei Stroescu, Andrei Pana, Ana Maria Dragan, and me, Dan Popescu. Working on a train has a strange effect on collaboration. There’s nowhere to go.
Everyone is present. The constraint becomes the feature.
We didn’t rush to build. We stopped to analyze, pivot, and think – a team focused on solving a real problem, not just shipping something that looked good under a deadline.
The product we designed is called Manoo – a circular economy app for people living in dense Romanian cities.
The core idea: lend small kitchen appliances, power tools, and other valuable-but-rarely-used objects to neighbors, instead of buying new or driving to the urban outskirts.
A usage optimization of existing domestic goods that leverages communist-era urban planning for a BANI world, adapted for Romania’s cultural dimensions.
The name contains the model. The OO in Manoo was designed to become an infinity loop – a nod to closed cycles, to things that don’t end.
On Sun, Apr 5, 2026, the final stage at Supertree, Pipera (Bucharest). The presentation plan was simple: I open, Andrei carries the second half, and the team handles the demo.
We also brought a surprise: two small appliances on stage. No hand-waving, no “imagine if.” Just: here it is, and here’s how it works beautifully.
And we won. Second hackathon. First win!
Romania’s first Rails hackathon has already pointed to something worth going.
If you work in circular economy, community platforms, or sustainable tech – or if you’re simply curious about where Manoo is heading – let’s talk.