Together with the Ministry of Investments, Regional Development, and Informatization of the Slovak Republic, we organized the fifth hackathon, funded by the Recovery and Resilience Plan, this time hosted in Prešov. The event brought together young talents and experienced IT professionals, providing them with the opportunity to design the concept of a digital twin of the city of Prešov. The purpose of this digital twin is to model various scenarios in fields such as energy, transport, environment, security, urbanization, and waste management. It will enable the city to respond directly to arising questions and anticipate their real-world impact. The top three teams were awarded a combined prize totaling 6,000 euros!
Approximately 60 hackers participated in the Prešov hackathon, which took place in the historical premises of the Solivar Museum, and formed 15 competitive teams. However, the two teams merged during the weekend, and in the end 14 of them competed while 10 teams managed to fulfill the task and hand over the proposed solution to the jury on time. After a long deliberation, the jury selected 3 winning teams.
The mayor of Prešov, František Oľha, also confirmed the potential of the ideas that arise during the hackathons and added: “I firmly believe that we will be able to compile the task as soon as possible, so that we can, in cooperation with the winning team, transform their solution into a real form. I am very pleased that we had a chance to be here, that we were given the opportunity to implement such a project with the support of the Recovery and Resilience Plan. What you saw with us today is related to everything that the city of Prešov needs at the moment.”
The winning teams
The winners of the hackathon were members of the nolimit team. They proposed a solution that enables the measurement of the immediate electricity consumption of Prešov buildings, the publication of data in the city’s data cloud and the visualization of consumption for any time unit. The winning team was led by Matej Lukáč, who acts as the CEO of the development studio nolimit, and after receiving the award, he explained why the hackathon topic interested them: “We thank the city for the specific topics, and that the pilot solution could be presented right at the hackathon venue. We chose real-time data collection for the city’s new data platform in combination with current needs in the field of energy, where the result should be measurement and subsequent savings in the electricity consumption.”
The ZARF team, which won the previous hackathon in Bratislava, finished in second place. “Another of the series of Slovak hackathons, when we can confirm that it is a technological event of the leading ranks in terms of preparation, organization and execution. In Prešov, we could also see that the city is still dominated by a strong share of the young and enthusiastic generation, which also showed that they care about their city and want to move it, as well as their country, forward,” commented team member Marek Gogoľ. The solution they proposed deals with the interpretation of data from the data cloud of the city of Prešov and their display in such a way that they are usable and understandable for administrative workers and ordinary citizens.
The third place belongs to the Džawľ student team, which was led by Martin Šechný, professor at SPŠE Prešov. Their designed solution uses real-time data from sensors, takes into account unused rooms and bank holidays, evaluates deficiencies and intelligently adjusts heating according to this data to prevent unnecessary energy consumption. After the event, Martin added, “The Digital Twin of the city of Prešov Hackathon is a great opportunity to find innovative ideas and connect talents into teams that can turn into start-ups. SPŠE Prešov has been educating young innovators for a long time for hackathons or other opportunities and thus systematically contributes to the city’s digital future.”
See you all at another hackathon in Trenčín
The Hacknime.to project does not end and will move to another Slovak city in November. On November 10 and 11, we will together look for a way to create a transparent investment system for the city of Trenčín. Registration of teams is already possible via the Hacknime.to website!
