Open Data Hackathon 2019

eazyBI continues supporting open data movement in Latvia by taking active participation in Open Data Hackathons. eazyBI was one of the sponsors of the event that took place in Valmiera, Latvia.

This year the Open Data Hackathon was focusing on growing the popularity of open data leverage for municipalities. eazyBI employees were participating in the teamwork and Raimonds Simanovskis—the founder and CEO of eazyBI—was one of the mentors throughout this 24-hour hackathon.

When I started the first Latvian Open Data hackathon eight years ago, there were just 10 participants and nobody in the government was speaking about it. Now I am happy that Open Data movement has grown significantly during these years and is a priority for Latvian government and municipalities. It was great to see so many different teams and ideas, as well as many new open data enthusiasts during the event. We will definitely continue to sponsor and support future Open Data events as well.

~ Raimonds Simanovskis

Open Data Hackathon Gaining Popularity

The goals of Hackathon this year were:

to raise awareness of the potential of open data;
to promote the opening and wider use of municipal and public administration data;
to show the benefits to municipalities, their citizens, businesses or tourists of creating products or services based on open data.

There were 14 teams participating in this year's hackathon. The challenge for participants was to create an innovative web or mobile app from open data focusing on 8 thematic directions – environment, transport, education, inhabitants, safety, medicine, development, and culture.

Open Data Hackaton for Municipalities 2019 was organized by the Ministry of the Environmental Protection and Regional Development of the Republic of Latvia in partnership with the Latvian Open Technology Association (LATA).

Awards

The 3rd place and the eazyBI prize went to the “Find Your Doctor” team. They created a user-friendly solution for finding the most competent and most accessible specialist for curing rare diseases. The goal of this application is to shorten the time of diagnosis and give people access to the care and treatment. Just by coincidence three eazyBI employees picked exactly this team to work on during the hackathon.

This was the second time I participated in such a long and big hackathon. In our team, there were four people from the previous Open Data Hackathon 2018 and some of us had experience working together. Just in 24 hours of data gathering, designing, and programming, the prototype of a web page was designed. As the author of the idea admitted, she had no idea that a project she dreamed about for the last three years could come to life within 24 hours.

~ Jānis Baiža, developer at eazyBI.

Mārtiņš Vanags from eazyBI participated in the hackathon for the second time. He said that he trusts in open data and its huge potential in the future:

Open data facilitates the evolution of new ideas and it is a great opportunity to meet professionals, enjoy the time together while enabling the society to make data-driven decisions.

~ Mārtiņš Vanags

3rd place: “Find a Doctor” team and Raimonds Simanovskis (first from the right side)

2nd place was taken by the team “Spriditis Club”. They provided an interactive map that helps to evaluate the potential of the future place of living. The application gathers the data about infrastructure, real-estate prices, public transportation, education options and more. This is a service to individuals, who are looking for a neighborhood or city to live. Their vision is to provide holistic-data based analysis of precise suggestions for an optimal living place for anyone.

2nd place: the “Spriditis Club” team

“EduFuture” was the winner of the Open Data Hackathon for Municipalities 2019 in Valmiera, Latvia. Their solution provides the approach for school ratings and future potential evaluation based on the number of students, exam results, and achievements in educational competitions. The objective for “EduFuture” is to make everyone—policymakers, parents, and students alike—take a step back and think about what can and should be done to make Latvian schools the envy of all onlookers.

The winning team “EduFuture” with the prize