In the framework of the EU Code Week, five countries (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia and Romania) hosted online youth hackathons this spring, bringing together teams of upper secondary school students to grow their existing coding skills and gain entrepreneurial experience. Over the course of 24 hours, the young innovators came up with creative solutions to local national challenge before pitching them to expert juries.
The hackathon challenges varied by country and were determined through an open call for challenges where teachers, peers and the local community put forth ideas that were later put to a public vote.
The teams received guidance from expert mentors with varied professional backgrounds, attended skills and pitching workshops, networked with peers and tested their idea before finally presenting it to the jury.
The selected teams will now move on to final national hackathons where they will further work on their national challenge.
The hackathon in Slovenia will take place online on 18-19 September. The call for challenges is currently open and community members are encouraged to propose challenges for the hackathon.
The dates and challenges for the national finals are:
- Slovenia 18-19 September 2021 - Propose a challenge or register to participate
- Ireland 23-24 September 2021 - Better communication between community groups
- Italy 24-25 September 2021 - Online market to sell local farmers' products and reduce CO2 emissions
- Romania 25-26 September 2021 - Fighting online fake news
- Latvia 1 October 2021 - Helping young people find jobs, according to their age, abilities and preferences
- Greece 9 October 2021 - Reservation system to eliminate queues outside restaurants and shops
The winning national teams from this autumn’s hackathons will compete against each other at an online event taking place during EU Code Week on 14 October.
For more information: https://codeweek.eu/hackathons/
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