The Ministry of Investments, Regional Development and Informatization of the Slovak Republic, in cooperation with Campus Cowork, organized another hackathon, the sixth in a row, funded by the Plan for the Recovery and Resilience of the Slovak Republic. On November 10-11, 2023, the city of Trenčín welcomed IT professionals, as well as high school and university students who are close to programming, application design or modern technologies.
The theme of the hackathon was digitization of the process of implementing investment actions in the city of Trenčín. Hackers were required to create a concept of the system solution for the management of investment actions of various categories and thus achieving acceleration and transparency of the implementation of investment projects, minimizing errors, improving internal communication, or making a selected view of investment actions available to the public.
Before the hackathon, process management was in the form of a shared Excel spreadsheet, while the supporting documents for investments were stored by the city in several places, which made it difficult to find them and identify the latest versions. Thanks to the innovative approach of the suggested solutions during the weekend it was possible to propose an improvement of these processes in the form of a digital and transparent system. “We thank all participants for their efforts and willingness to help the municipality. Now we are waiting for the second stage of the project with MIRRI, to develop the best solution and put it into operation. We believe that we will succeed together,” added the deputy mayor of Trenčín, Patrik Žák.
The winners shared prize money of 6,000 euros
The winner of the hackathon “Building a city with a transparent investment system” was the team with the name Opium. For their efforts, they were also rewarded with a financial prize of 3,000 euros! Their idea consists of a Microsoft 365 solution for the complex process of investment actions processed as the central HUB of the city. The team captain, Matúš Izakovič, described their solution in more detail: “Hackathon allowed us to show our experience in developing custom applications for Microsoft 365 and Teams. We enjoyed a well-executed hackathon and designed a comprehensive investment management solution for the city of Trenčín. We developed a process analysis, incorporated the city’s processes for managing investments and communicating with city employees, from the need for an investment event, through communication to authorities, engineering, to the approval. We have created “one place of truth”: City HUB, which replaces the city’s intranet and allows managing investment actions, including records, notifications, documents, communication, document generation, budgeting and is personalized for each city employee. The system includes a connector for updating information about investment events on the city’s website, an automatic system for sending SMS and WhatsApp messages to citizens about restrictions on communications, and “Trenčan” – an intelligent AI communication expert who answers citizens’ questions with human speech and knows about all investment events, restrictions and closures of communications and is able to provide information to every citizen 24/7. The Opium.systems team really enjoyed the hackathon! More events like this please!”
The second place and a reward of 2,000 euros (again 🙂) was won by the team Gogoľ x ZARF. During the hackathon, they created a project management system that consists of an administrative interface and a public website with a simple overview of projects and investments designed to present active projects to citizens. The system covers project management issues, checks compliance with deadlines and archives all changes. Thanks to the automatic generation of API documentation and API outputs from each module, it enables easy integration into other internal systems. “For this hackathon, we joined the forces of the companies Gogoľ Development and ZARF in order to bring to the city of Trenčín a solid IT solution in the field of investment management. We are delighted that our functional prototype, www.inovujemetrencin.sk, impressed the jury, and we consider ending in the TOP 3 again as fulfilling our mission – improving Slovak IT and Slovakia as a whole,” said Adam Pastirčák.
The third place with a financial reward of 1,000 euros was taken by a team called Team 09. According to the assignment, they decided to develop a solution based on M365 cloud technologies, thus guaranteeing its usability, sustainability and, above all, feasibility. “The hackathon in Trenčín was miraculous, for two days we moved to an ideal world where everything worked, food and drink appeared on the table, everyone was smiling, mentors were available, it was awesome! We learned a lot, and the fact that we managed to win a bit of the prize money pleased and greatly encouraged us! Thanks to everyone who brought this miracle to Trenčín.” said the team captain, Vlado Sedlák.
Hackathons will continue in 2024
With the Hackathon in Trenčín, which was already the sixth in a row, we ended the Hacknime.to project for this year. However, another challenge was recently published through MIRRI SR, through which municipalities could sign up and propose hackathon topics for next year. After the evaluation of the applications by expert evaluators, up to 5 topics will be selected and we will start preparations for their implementation during the year 2024!
