Hack for Locals 2.0: The UN and the Ministry of Digital Transformation will hold a hackathon to increase security in communities

The UN Recovery and Peacebuilding Programme together with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine invites everyone to take part in the three-day hackathon, Hack for Locals 2.0: Safer Communities Hackathon, which will take place from October 30 to November 1, 2020.

About Hack for Locals 2.0

The central idea of the hackathon is to unite concerned participants from all over Ukraine: developers, designers, community representatives, officials, activists and civil society enthusiasts, security service providers, entrepreneurs, and marketers for effective cooperation and search for innovative solutions that will help build more secure, strong and solid communities.

The Happy Monday Career Development Platform is hosting the event with the Innovation Agency Center42 under the UN Peacebuilding and Reconstruction Programme and in partnership with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Donetsk, and Luhansk Regional State Administrations with financial support from the European Union and the governments of Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden.

How to take part in a hackathon?

1. register to the event at the link. You can register as an individual participant and choose a team on the hackathon or go to the hackathon with the team of change agents already formed
2. Join the hackathon on October 30 at any place convenient for you, online or at one of the partner locations
3. Create a project in 48 hours and present it to the jury. You can gather your own team, work independently, or join existing teams

Registration for the hackathon will last until October 20, 2020.

To take part in the hackathon, your project idea has to correspond to one of the following directions:

1. digital security and digital literacy
2. safe and inclusive services for everyone without exception
3. coordination of activities between different security service providers and communities
4. effective crisis response and early warning/notification capabilities (how to bring together citizens, government officials, and local security providers if an emergency or threat occurs)
5. strengthening public safety using open data

Grant support for the winners' projects

The top three projects will receive a grant from the UN Peacebuilding and Reconstruction Programme to carry out their ideas (grant amount can range from $3,000 to $30,000 depending on the idea and geography of the project), grant application support, mentoring from organizers, and other valuable prizes from partners.

Hackathon format

The hackathon will take place online using Slack and Zoom. In addition, they will organize seven offline partner locations in different Ukrainian cities based in universities and IT company SoftServe:

• Donetsk National Technical University (Pokrovsk)
• Priazovskyi State Technical University (Mariupol)
• Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University (Severodonetsk)
• Polissya National University (Zhytomyr)
• Oles Honchar Dnipro National University (Dnipro)
• Ivano-Frankivsk National Technical University of Oil and Gas, Scientific town "New Energy" (Ivano-Frankivsk)
• Vasyl Karazin Kharkiv National University and IT company SoftServe (Kharkiv)

The coordinators will create comfortable conditions for teamwork: tea, coffee, lunch, and support team. So, if desired, the teams can meet live or choose an online format.

Participation is free with mandatory registration. For offline participants, the organizers will offer the conditions for comfortable work at the location (subject to possible restrictions), food, and, perhaps, reimburse travel expenses for participants from other cities (up to 750 UAH per person upon presenting tickets).

Note

The United Nations Peacebuilding Programme is implemented by four UN agencies: the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The program is supported by thirteen international partners: the European Union, the European Investment Bank, the US Embassy in Ukraine, and the governments of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Sweden, and Japan.

Rubryka is an information partner of Hack for Locals 2.0: Safer Communities Hackathon