The 6th edition of the Public Administration Hackathon: In 24 hours, apps were created to help with business and leisure
PRESS RELEASE ON THE 6TH EDITION OF THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION HACKATHON – 7 and 8 March 2025
On Friday and Saturday, 7 and 8 March 2025, participants of the 6th edition of the Public Administration Hackathon demonstrated how open data can contribute to the development of new applications and websites that improve citizens' daily lives. This year, 54 students - winners of regional Student Hackathons - gathered at the Prague headquarters of the Supreme Audit Office (SAO), the traditional organizer of the event. The award-winning apps focused on the best business opportunities in the city, real-time availability of parking spaces in Prague, where to find the best place to live or how to best spend your free time with friends.
"Participants in this year's hackathon lived up to its motto one hundred and ten percent: "It's your state too, come improve it!". It is incredible what enthusiasm and passion, and above all what great ideas they showed, and what functional applications they created here in 24 hours," said Jan Málek, Vice President of the SAO.
A total of 14 competition teams were made up of primary, secondary and university students aged between 12 and 30. Participants could either refine and expand a project from the regional round or develop a completely new solution using datasets from the National Open Data Catalogue or institutional datasets presented at the hackathon.
Winners: business support and parking in Prague
The winner in the category of projects created on the spot was a two-member high school team "Meui" from Liberec with the application "PodniGo", which is a kind of base for future entrepreneurs. It helps to identify opportunities, offers an in-depth analysis of the industry in the Czech Republic, thanks to which the interested party learns whether it is worth doing business in a given industry and location. The jury described the project as "highly usable for business support".
The best project developed from a regional round was "Parksense," created by the university team "NTL-CUP" from the Olomouc region. This mobile app assists Prague residents in finding free parking spaces by providing real-time occupancy updates every 15 minutes.
The second place in the category of projects created on the spot went to the team of high school students from Klatovy "Datashort" with the application "Path to living". Thanks to it, a person interested in housing can find a comparison of the amount of rent in relation to the net wage in each region and find out what percentage of their net income they pay for rent. They can also find out what the job supply is according to position and salary in a given location and, for example, find a model lease agreement prepared with the help of artificial intelligence. In addition to the use of AI, the jury particularly appreciated the solution of a topic that corresponds to a current need.
The second place in the category of projects developed from the original project went to the team of high school students from Pardubice "Meet.map" with the application of the same name. The app helps to plan meetings with friends, offers various events and places where these events take place. It will even show the air quality in a given location.
This year, 11 institutions have provided open data, including the Czech Statistical Office (CSO). It has 1,099 datasets in the National Catalogue of Open Data. "We are a numbers factory," said Pavel Hájek, a representative of the CSO. The event was supported by seven partner organisations. Among them, for example, the University of Hradec Králové, whose representative promised the participants from high schools that if they applied to the university, they would be admitted without an entrance exam. "Working with data and its interpretation is becoming increasingly important and this year's hackathon confirmed it once again," said Adam Golecký, executive director of NIX.CZ, another partner of the event. Ondřej Filip, Executive Director of the Czech association CZ.NIC, added: "The sixth edition of the Public Administration Hackathon proved once again that the young generation in the Czech Republic has great potential for improving the Czech public administration, also thanks to the use of open data."
Together with the organizers, judges, mentors and guests, 115 people attended the event.
More information about the sixth edition of the hackathon can be found at www.hackujstat.cz.
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office