Hackathon “Hack4Vilnius” Winners Offer New Ways to Get to Know the Attractions of Vilnius

“Hack4Vilnius” – a hackathon, dedicated to improving the city of Vilnius, for the third year in a row enriched the city with 19 new ideas, solving city pollution, traffic jam, sustainable neighbourhood, leisure planning, tourism and other challenges of the capital of Lithuania. The remote event brought together more than 150 participants, including programmers, business developers and other professionals, who were assisted in the development and implementation of solutions by 16 specialists from various fields, venture capital funds and city organizations.

Throughout the weekend, teams tackled the challenges of innovative urban mobility and offered smart, safe and inclusive urban environmental solutions. The patron of “Hack4Vilnius”, Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius, emphasized that Vilnius aims to be radical in open data policy. He urged participants of the hackathon to use the resources of the city for new and better solutions, even if they change the obsolete traditions.

Vilnius University Vice-Rector Prof Edita Sužiedėlienė was delighted that so many participants expressed an interest in contributing to the work that will help create a cleaner, safer and more attractive city: "Good ideas have more energy than physical strength," the Vice-Rector quoted Sophocles and wished the teams the best of luck.

The main prize of the hackathon "Hack4Vilnius" – 1500 Eur., established by "Cognizant Technology Solutions Lithuania", went to the team "My wonder bird", which offered a smart and productive solution on how to find and explore Vilnius sights. Tourists in Vilnius can plan the route on a similar principle as in Tinder app: the places of interest are arranged into a plan and distributed by days, indicating the most optimal route.

Another team – “GMA”, won the opportunity to develop their idea in a three-month membership at “VilniusTech” innovation center “LinkMenų fabrikas”. The team suggested an idea that would encourage pupils to take an interest in science using scientific experiments and in this way to expand the possibilities of traditional school and general education programs.

The “Arfilter” team won the tickets to the largest programming conference in the Baltics, “Build Stuff 2020”. This team presented an artificial intelligence and augmented reality solution that would encourage people to participate in voting for various projects in the city more actively.
The possibility to develop IT knowledge by using the “CodeAcademy” 1000 Euro scholarship for the selected courses went to the team “Ping”. This hackathon team pitched a parking system that allows the driver to spot a free parking space in Vilnius parking lots in real time.

“Hack4Vilnius” 2020 organizers: Sunrise Valley Science and Technology Park, Vilnius University, VILNIUS TECH, “Cognizant Technology Solutions Lithuania”.