CoronaThon.me : COVID-19 Response & Recovery Hackathon

Date:

April 24-26 2020

Prize pool:

13,000 EUR

Location:

#StayAtHome

Each crisis brings a number of challenges, while also giving rise to new opportunities. As the coronavirus keeps spreading, so do the innovations in the fight against the pandemic. Technology helps us cope with life in lockdown, but also offers new solutions to overcome the crisis.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, this hackathon gives us an opportunity to jointly identify good ideas and solutions to help Montenegro adapt, respond and recover speedily. To accelerate this process, we rely on the experts on modern technologies and collective intelligence and invite you to join forces with us and hack the crisis.

CoronaThon has ended!

This hackathon aims for top solutions in the following categories, which have been broadly defined to boost innovation without hampering creativity:

Protect lives and public health

Help individuals and families stay safe; Provide support to the community to slow down the spread of the virus; Protect health workers; Help ensure a faster and better health system response; Promote healthy lifestyles and help build mechanisms for adaptation, including psychosocial support.

Accelerate recovery

Help the business sector adapt and offer new services; Help create opportunities for youth employment; Secure access to finance for small businesses and start-ups; Innovation in service delivery and support for the most vulnerable, in the context of employment and social welfare; Protection of creative businesses – mapping creative individuals and linking them with the identified demand for their engagement; Use of new data and support to digital infrastructure.

Ensure sustainable future

Innovative solutions to minimize GHG emissions through green economic activities such as green tourism, sustainable transport and others; Securing new green jobs; Generating new creative contents to promote Montenegro and its cultural heritage (e.g. through demo video games); Activities in education – including investments in digital skills and infrastructure.

Prizes

UNDP has provided the top three prizes that constitute the biggest prize pool ever for a hackathon organized in Montenegro.

1st prize:

5.000€

2nd prize:

3.000€

3rd prize:

2.000€

We wish to highlight that the UNDP and several of its partners will provide additional support towards development and promotion of the best solutions after the hackathon.

In follow-up to its collaboration with the Ministry of Science, DevClub has provided three additional prizes:

3 X 1.000€

Inspiration

In case you need inspiration and assistance deciding which problem to focus on, please have a look at the links below (do not copy!). Focus on the problems affecting us the most, such as:

Lack of essential medical supplies in pharmacies – whether as citizens we can receive information when a product becomes available and restocked;

Whether the organizations assisting the vulnerable groups of population need a tool to facilitate coordination;

Lack of options for some services and information to be delivered through online communication channels – could we create a way to communicate with the state and other services that would allow use to complete 90% via chat interface;

How can we facilitate and accelerate the recovery of the affected economic sectors – such as catering or small and medium sized businesses in the services sector.

COVID-19 Global Hackathon Project List

FAQs

What is a hackathon?

A hackathon is an intense event where teams of participants design innovative solutions within a constrained period of time. There are various types of hackathons that may take on a number of different forms; however, what they all have in common is the focus on a subject of particular social relevance. This is also the case with Coronathon, which focuses on the innovative solutions in countering the crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

Who is eligible to participate?

If you have an idea and skills to develop a solution under one of the 3 themes, you are welcome to join in. All team members have to be older than 18 years of age.

Please note that 15 teams will be selected to participate in the hackathon. Teams will be selected based on the following criteria: sustainability, replicability, impact, feasibility, timeline and innovation.

Notice: Team members and employees of organisations serving as CoronaThon organisers, coorganisers and media partners cannot compete in the hackaton due to conflict of interest.

Please keep in mind that CoronaThon primarily searches for solutions that are applicable to and will be implemented in Montenegro.

At least one team member has to be resident of Montenegro.

Does team size matter? Am I allowed to participate on my own?

Since the competition requires you to design a solution and present it well, the team has to have 2-6 members, to make sure you can successfully deal with the intensity and the requirements. If you need to take on new members or wish to help out a specific team, please join our Slack community and look for a partner there.

I wish to participate and I have an idea – what should I do?

Great! These are the steps to follow:

Set up a team of at least 2 people.
Register your team here and join us on Slack. Registration is already on.
Start designing and developing the project.
Submit your solution by Sunday, 26 April at 16:00.

What are the key dates?

8 April – Applications open

20 April – 23:59 – Applications close

22 April – All participants receive confirmations during the day

24 April – 16:00 – Hackathon officially begins

25 April – 10:00 – Progress check

25 April – 12:00 – Mentors are at your disposal

26 April – 16:00 – Deadline for submissions (early submission recommended)

26 April – 17:00 – Presentation of all solutions

26 April – 18:30 – Panel decision and awards

What to do to submit a solution for evaluation?

Please insert in the template the link to the Youtube video which may not be longer than 3 minutes (strict rule – applications involving longer videos will not be evaluated). The video you create should serve as a good demonstration of your solution. Where possible (e.g. software solutions), a link to the publicly available project should be sent as well. The template will allow you to include a further description of the potential of your solution.

What are the evaluation criteria?

The submitted solutions will be evaluated against the following criteria: sustainability, replicability, impact, feasibility, timeline and innovation.

Please bear in mind that the hackathon is about practical solutions that may assist individuals, community and businesses in the shortest term possible. Please focus on problem solving and be pragmatic. The business aspects of your solution are not a top priority at this point.

Are prizes available?

UNDP has provided the top three prizes that constitute the biggest prize pool ever for a hackathon organized in Montenegro.

1st prize – €5,000
2nd prize – €3,000
3rd prize – €2,000

In follow-up to its collaboration with the Ministry of Science, DevClub has provided three additional €1,000 prizes, adding to the total hackathon prize pool of €13,000.

The winning teams will also receive mentoring support towards implementing their solutions over the subsequent three months and will have opportunities to promote them in all the relevant media.

The generous prizes reflect the high expectations from the ideas that the community has to offer on how to weather this health, economic and social crisis.

Who are the people behind the Coronathon?

The Coronathon is organized by a team of people who believe that the current challenges brought about by the coronavirus pandemic may be solved or significantly alleviated if as a community we devote ourselves to identifying and implementing creative solutions. Event organizers are the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Ministry of Science and Ministry of Culture; the co-organizers tasked with implementing the event are the young professionals from DevClub, Alicorn, Digitalizuj.me and Science and Technology Park, supported by the entire IT community. The media partners are Vijesti TV, Vijesti Portal and RTCG.

This is a fantastic idea – how can I support you?

We need support. If you are a seasoned professional with necessary expertise in the key sectors such as health or assistance to vulnerable groups or if you run a company in one of the industries that are particularly affected by the crisis, please sign up here to act as a team consultant or propose a problem that needs to be solved here.

If you are a state institution wishing to help by endorsing and immediately rolling out one of the solutions please sign up here.

If you represent a media outlet wishing to help by making sure the solutions get adequate media promotion, please sign up here.

Where does the Coronathon take place?

The Coronathon hackathon is a fully online event. We strictly abide by the guidance provided by the Institute for Public Health and support the #Stay AtHome campaign.

We make use of the modern tools such as Slack for coordination, Zoom and Hangouts for communication, Google tools such as Forms and Spreadsheet for exchange of ideas. All tools are available to participants free-of-charge.