On March 31 – April 2, Vilnius Tech Park will host Hacker Games Pro, the first hackathon uniting startups, innovation enthusiasts and large enterprises. During the creative workshop, more than 100 people will develop open data-based technologies. Participants will compete for the prize – an opportunity to develop the proposed business idea further with the assistance of mentors and to receive the initial investment.

The main goal of Hacker Games Pro is to team up developers, designers, marketing professionals and professionals from large companies for development of innovations. The theme of the first event: open data technologies.

"Data helps to monitor changes and developments of cities over time and to adapt decisions for urban infrastructure. However, to solve problems quickly and efficiently, ensuring the availability of data is not enough. This requires innovative solutions, which can analyse data from different angles and predict future trends,” says Povilas Poderskis, advisor for technology to the Mayor of Vilnius city and one of the mentors in the project. “During Hacker Games Pro, we will seek to identify real problems and their solutions using the collected data."

According to Poderskis, Vilnius has a number of solutions of data technology. For example, TRAFI is an application that analyses public transport data and provides travel time, Kurgyvenu.lt website analyses the quality of residential areas.

Enterprises will open their data

During the creative workshop, organised by Vilnius Tech Park and Startup Lithuania, participants will be able to develop their own business ideas or create mixed teams with the professionals from participating companies: Centre of Registers, Creditinfo, Alna. Participants will have 48 hours to create and refine an open data-based business idea that solves a particular problem. Experts from different areas, such as open data specialists, startups developers and investors, will also attend the event to help the participants.

For development of business ideas, Vilnius city municipality will present e-ticket, m.Ticket and m.Parking data. Centre of Registers will provide data on the building infrastructure, plots, legal entities and the Population Register’s information. Credit bureau Creditinfo, which operates a system used by financial institutions to assess the credit history of customers, will open the population’s credit ratings.

Promotes cooperation

According to Vilnius Tech Park acting director Darius Zakaitis, Hacker Games Pro is a unique example of cooperation among startups, large companies and the public sector. “Data-based technology is gaining more and more momentum; therefore, it is important for organisations in this field to keep a finger on the pulse of innovation. Vilnius Tech Park, which brings together over 700 members of technology ecosystem, perhaps, is the most favourable environment to build relationships with innovators and develop common solutions for both private and public organisations,” says D. Zakaitis. 

Hacker Games Pro has a distinctive feature – orientation to continuity. The owners of the best project will be granted an opportunity to development their business idea further at Vilnius Tech Park for three months, using the park’s infrastructure and help of various mentors, free of charge. Furthermore, if the project reaches certain goals, the accelerator "StartupHighway" will pay the initial investment.

The open data hackathon is the first event of hackathon series Hacker Games Pro. In total, at least four hackathons, uniting startups, innovation enthusiasts and large companies, and oriented to different sectors of innovation, will be organised this year.