Connected Lithuania Hackathons for transforming society: from idea to start-up
The “Connected Lithuania” project called for the participation of young people who want to identify and find ways to choose issues of interest to their country or region. The project is a key national action to raise awareness of digital skills for all Lithuanian citizens, with a focus on specific age groups like younger and older people, students, or teachers and educators.
Within the framework of the project, a series of regional hackathons were organised. In total, 192young people aged 14-29 from different areas of Lithuania participated in regional hackathons. The hackathons aimed to bring together young people and get them to identify key societal challenges they would like to tackle via digital tools, develop a digital product, and bring it to the market.
'Hacking digital skills' regionally
The first hackathons took place face to face in the regions, but the creative workshops moved to the digital environment following changes in the epidemiological situation in Lithuania. Hackathons therefore continued remotely where participants could safely communicate, consult and develop their ideas.
Each workshop lasted10 hours, allowing enough time for participants to clear ideas and develop a preliminary plan for the development and implementation of the digital tool. The presentations of the ideas were assessed by the members of the commission, who took into account the originality of the idea, the ability to apply in practice, creativity, the logical sequence of ideas and clarity.
Winning ideas
The best ideas in the regions were awarded excellent prizes and were given the opportunity to take part in the national hackathon, which rewarded the three best winning teams.
The BBRIGHT team, who won the first place with the idea of a virtual support and information network accessible to each pupil, received scholarships of EUR 500 and a mentoring session by the Start-up Ecosystem Development Unit “Startup Lithuania” for further development of an idea or product.
The second and third prize winners won gift vouchers. The YUFFI team proposed a start-up prototype of aVirtual Restaurant menu and ‘LOVELYPAWS’ - a website to link all shelters in Lithuania to help people recover their lost pets and find new four-legged friends more easily.
Read about the winners of the regional hackatons and their topics here. Please note that this article is only available in Lithuanian. A short video of the hackathons is also available.
