After the success of the first hackathon last year, the Hacknime.to project from the Ministry of Investment, Regional Development, and Informatization returned to Prešov for a second time. The theme of the event, “Digital Citizen,” aimed to create a concept for a digital city identity to provide digital services and increase citizen participation in the city of Prešov. On September 4 – 5, students, young talents, IT experts, and innovation enthusiasts gathered to jointly build the digital future of Slovakia.
The “Digital Citizen” hackathon, funded by the Slovak Recovery and Resilience Plan, attracted 44 hackers, who formed 11 competing teams. In addition to focusing on their projects, participants also enjoyed a supplementary program, including a workshop titled “How to Win a Hackathon” presented by Denis Sedlák, Local Ecosystem Development Manager at SARIO, and a live demonstration of exercises for people with sedentary jobs by the startup Desk-athlete.
“My impressions are fantastic, perhaps even better than after the first hackathon. There were many great ideas, and everything was open until the presentation of the last competition idea. We’re going into realization again; we want to create the foundation for a solution to which we’ll add more systems. So, scalability was key for us,” said the mayor of Prešov, František Oľha, as he evaluated the event. During the evaluation, he also expressed his excitement about the creativity of the teams and the potential to incorporate their ideas into the final system.
First place goes to the Noove Team
Team Noove, which included two members from the winning team of the June hackathon for the Public Procurement Office, took first place in Prešov. According to them, their success was largely thanks to advice from mentors and a focus on a cohesive idea. “I’m glad we took the mentors’ advice and listened to their suggestions. What we originally brought to them was mostly rejected,” smiled Matúš Koleják, adding, “We came with an app for everything, but based on recommendations, we went for a more focused solution that made real sense.”
They developed an app called “Digital Prešov,” which allows citizens to easily report city issues and submit suggestions. The app uses gamification to boost engagement and artificial intelligence to quickly process inputs. The goal is to streamline communication between citizens and city officials and support participatory planning.
Second place goes to Team Lwíčkovci
Team Lwíčkovci also has experience with the Hacknime.to project and has previously been on the podium, even finishing first once. This time, they relied on direct feedback from the citizens of Prešov. During the hackathon, they went out into the streets, stopping passersby to ask for their opinions. The result was an app proposal called “For Prešov,” offering easy access to city services, identity verification, office reservations, and personalized information. The app helps citizens communicate effectively with the city and provides incentives in the form of discounts and benefits.
Third place and The Audience Award go to student Team Argon
Although team Argon primarily participates in hackathons to learn and gain experience, they regularly place among the winners. This was their seventh hackathon, and they impressed both the audience and the expert jury. The app they developed, “My Prešov,” serves as a more efficient communication tool between the city of Prešov and its citizens, who, as Argon states, “want to be heard.” The app uses banking ID technology for identity verification, which has been operating in neighboring countries like Ukraine and the Czech Republic for several months or years. Through the app, citizens can vote on city developments, participate in important decisions, store important documents, and keep track of fees and taxes. The app also supports small and medium-sized businesses, the backbone of the economy.
“We’re very happy that we managed to impress the jury again and remain motivated to continue participating in Hacknime.to events. It’s a great opportunity to meet new people. In fact, our current team formed at a hackathon by connecting members from western and eastern Slovakia,” said Vladyslav Panik from team Argon, reflecting on his experience.
Hacknime.to continues in Eastern Slovakia, heading to Košice
The eleventh hackathon will once again offer an opportunity for young talented people to bring innovations into the lives of Slovak citizens. On September 23 and 24, a hackathon titled “Regional Development Portal” will take place in Košice, as part of the SlovakiaTech 2024 program.
The hackathon challenge is: “Design an innovative development portal for the Košice region to provide useful information for investors and regional development organizations.” Applications are now open on the hacknime.to website.
