The Public Procurement Office’s challenge was to find such digital solution that would support public procurement services and relieve the administrative burden on contracting authorities. Over the past weekend, hackers were tasked with finding a solution to the theme: “Design a digital solution that will automatically search for and generate customized sample competition documents and general terms and conditions”.
The ninth MIRRI SR hackathon, funded by the Recovery and Resilience Plan, was titled “Let’s Hack the Competition Documents” and took place during Friday and Saturday, 21 and 22 June at Simplicity R&D, SKY PARK Offices in Bratislava. A total of 9 teams composed of students, developers or experts in digitalization and innovative solutions participated in the competition.
After the presentations of the proposed solutions and the deliberation of the judges, 4 teams were awarded. 3 teams succeeded in the evaluation by the expert jury and one team convinced the audience and thus won the audience award.
“What I saw today fills me with optimism. If young people continue to approach challenges creatively, as they did today, we might actually make some progress. As I mentioned earlier, in 2005, we were leaders in the digitization of public procurement in the EU. Today, we are not. However, I hope that thanks to the ideas presented here today, we will be able to implement a modern and digital solution,” said Peter Kubovič, Chairman of the Public Procurement Office, expressing his positive impressions of the event.
The first place went to a team called FIIT STU, which participated in the Hacknime.to event for the first time. Their winning solution is a digital platform that automates the creation and management of competition documents and general terms and conditions. It enables automatic document generation, provides alerts on errors and legislative changes, and offers comprehensive statistics for public procurement. After receiving the award, team captain Matúš Koleják evaluated the importance of the mentoring spaces: “from the beginning we had a vision of how we wanted to develop our solution. But gradually, during the meetings with mentors, we adjusted the direction we took, as the mentors were able to guide us precisely.”
The second place went to the team that won the previous hackathon in Banská Bystrica – Lwíčkovci. The solution they proposed aims to simplify the process of creating competition documents for both the Office of Public Procurement and public procurers. They also emphasized UI and UX design, which is critical in this process, and included several smaller functionalities that help both parties ease their work and save information that would otherwise have to be duplicated each time. After the hackathon, we asked them about the progress they had made as a team. “At the last hackathon, some of us were meeting for the first time, but today each of us has found our role,” explained Adam Tížik. “Each of our roles has gradually crystallized, allowing us to complement each other better,” added Matej Kuka.
Team Carameet, whose member Lucia Drobná was the winner of the first Hacknime.to hackathon, took third place this time. Their solution automates the creation of public procurement and also reduces the error rate by providing hints to the contracting authority. The creation of the RFP is done using simple machine learning, which adds duplicate data and automatically generates additional attachments such as contracts and general terms and conditions. “Announcing the results of each hackathon feels like a lottery to me. Every theme, jury, and presented solution is so unique that I wouldn’t dare to predict the outcome. In the past, I always left hackathons with strong emotions, whether positive or negative. However, today I can understand what the jury liked about other teams and why a particular solution made more sense to them in the context of the event’s theme,” said Lucia after the results were announced.
The Audience Award, along with a month’s membership at the innovation hub Campus Cowork, was won by the student team Sodehal. “I am glad that talent from high school was recognized with the Audience Award. We have a place at Campus for such people to create and work on their startups and projects,” added Viktor Štefaňák, Head of Partnerships at Campus Cowork.
Hackathons in Prešov and Košice continue after the summer break
The Hacknime.to project reached its halfway point with the hackathon for the ÚVO, which was the ninth in a series of 18 events. At least two more events are planned from September until the end of 2024, during which the project will move to the east of Slovakia. More information about upcoming hackathons will be added to the hacknime.to website throughout the summer.
