N-iX has supported Hack the New World hackathon organized by IT Arena in cooperation with Lviv Tech Angels, Lviv City Council, and other partners. The hackathon took place online on May 15-17 when software engineers, designers, innovators, and entrepreneurs tried to solve the most urgent problems of the new post COVID world.
Hack the New World hackathon brought together 181 participants, 24 mentors, and 16 judges united by the idea of finding tech solutions that could help people, businesses, and local communities in the post-quarantine period. The teams addressed such issues as maintaining business continuity, safe interaction and social distancing, logistics difficulties, to name a few.
During 48 hours, 22 hackathon teams worked on and presented their creative ready-to-implement solutions for Lviv, Ukraine, and the world. All the teams got assistance from experienced engineers who volunteered to join the hackathon. Among them were two N-iX experts – Oleh Zasadnyy, Tech Lead at N-iX, and Kate Alieksieieva, Front End Architect at N-iX.
“I have participated in a few hackathons both as a team runner and an organizer. This event was the first hackathon I joined as a mentor. I liked how result-oriented it was - the teams worked on problems that are relevant to the post-COVID world. My task as a mentor was to assist them whenever they felt stuck or unsure about the technical side of the realization. By joining events like this, I understand how much the IT community can achieve when uniting the efforts,” says Oleh Zasadnyy, Tech Lead at N-iX, mentor at Hack the New World hackathon.
The best ideas of the hackathon were selected by a diverse judge panel. Among the judges were representatives of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Digital Transformation as well as Lviv City Council. Also, Andrew Pavliv, N-iX Founder and CEO, was among the judges at Hack the New World hackathon.
Thirteen teams got through to the final and three of them got monetary prizes. One of the prizes was provided by the Lviv Tech Angels club - a community of investors who aim to boost a startup culture in Lviv and Ukraine.
Orest Furhala, CEO at Lviv Tech Angels, says:
“While the fallout from the COVID-19 crisis brings a lot of unprecedented challenges, it also offers new opportunities. The IT community has helped financially to fight the pandemic, but the expertise of our people can also be of great help. With this in mind, we were happy to gather like-minded people who are ready to use their knowledge and experience to tame the pandemic or help those affected by the crisis. And now, one week after the event, we see a solution of one of the winning teams of the hackathon - Thermal Camera - already getting tested in the Lviv City Council. This is the kind of result we aimed for by bringing together all the participants and stakeholders of this event.
'One more thing to highlight is that for us as the co-organizers of hackathons this was also a double challenge. First, we needed to “hack” the usual workflow and make everything happen online. Second, we merged two events into one in a bit more than one week. Many thanks for the trust and hard work to all the co-organizers and partners!' adds Orest Furhala.
The main prize of USD 3,000 went to a startup called Kolo.Track. The startup offers farmers a corporate system that would automate internal processes, help obtain appropriate certifications, control product quality, as well as communicate with regulatory authorities.
The runner-up is a SafeMenu team. They came up with an idea to make cafes and restaurants visits safe by replacing all printed menus with ones generated online. The team received USD 2,000.
The third prize and $1,000 went to Thermal Camera for the idea for automatic temperature measurement.
As a technology company, N-iX uses its expertise both to serve global clients and respond to the biggest challenges of our time. Also, thanks to N-iX Fund for fighting COVID-19 and generous contributions of many N-iXers, the communities where we operate received around 10,000 SARS-COV-2 test kits for stopping the spread of the virus. Learn more about other corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities N-iX initiates and supports.
