2016 V4 Hackathon: Driving The ‘Connected Life’

The Czech Telecommunications Office and AT&T Encourage Developers to Create Innovative Apps

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC, March 25, 2016 /3BL Media/ — AT&T* and the Czech Telecommunications Office (CTU) are joining to host a hackathon event in Prague on April 22-23, 2016. The event hopes to drive innovation and entrepreneurship in the Visegrád Group, or V4 region.

The hackathon is open to developers and non-developers. The mission? Create new apps to harness Connected Life in 1 of 4 categories—in just 24 hours:  

• Smart Cities App Challenge: Using AT&T and sponsor technologies to improve the efficiency of city services. Address issues in parking, resource management and community engagement.
• Education App Challenge: Using AT&T and sponsor technologies to create an impactful education-focused app that focuses on enhancing learning in school and/or at home.
• Best Use of the Czech Republic’s Open Data: Using open data from the Czech Republic’s government sources.

Winners will split cash prizes worth US$15,000. Five randomly selected contestants will split US$10,000 in scholarships for online Nanodegree courses**.  Winning teams will also receive mentoring from CZ.NIC, Credo Ventures, and Y Soft Ventures.    The CTU and AT&T V4 Hackathon is the first event of its kind held in the Czech Republic by the 2 host organizations. The hackathon will provide contestant teams various tools to create new apps.  Contestant teams will also have access to the AT&T M2X IoT development platform. It offers a toolset to quickly create and refine prototypes, and cloud-based data storage to help collect, analyze and share IoT data.  Tech experts will also be at the event to lend support.

“This event is exactly what the V4 region needs. It’s a great opportunity to accelerate our progress in IoT area,” said Jaromír Novák, Chairman of the CTU Council. “We hope the Hackathon will offer up many successful and viable projects.”

“We’re proud to sponsor our first hackathon in the Czech Republic with CTU,” said John Vladimir Slamecka, AT&T Region President – Global Business, Europe the Middle East and Africa. “We want to inspire and empower developers to innovate. Contestants will have the opportunity to gain skills and find new ways to unlock the power of the Internet of Things.”

Czech Domain Name Registry, CZ.NIC, will also provide certain open source software and other technology for use by the contestants in the event.

“Support and promotion of open source projects is one of our most important missions. Some of our own activities emerge from the enthusiasm of people who created projects in their spare time. We’ll consider the best open source projects for our CZ.NIC Labs,” said Ondřej Filip, CEO of CZ.NIC.

The hackathon will take place at the Orea Hotel Pyramida, Prague. Registration begins at 9.00 a.m. CET on April 22 and the event will end at 6.00 p.m. CET on April 23, during which contestants will have 24 hours to create their apps. The first place winner will receive US$10,000; the second place winner will receive US$2,000; and the third place winner will receive US$1,000. The contestant judged “Best use of the Czech Republic’s open data sources and best use of CZ.NIC’s open source framework” will receive US$1,000.

In addition, five contestants selected at random will each receive a US$2,000 scholarship for online Nanodegree courses**.

“At AT&T, we foster innovation and strive to provide people with the skills needed for careers in technology. These Nanodegree scholarships will provide the opportunity for hackathon contestants to gain these critical skills while they continue to innovate and create technology that can build a better tomorrow,” said Nicole Anderson, Assistant Vice President of Social Innovation at AT&T. 

To register online, visit: http://v4hackathon2016.eventbrite.com. 

Follow the conversation on Twitter with #V4HACK2016 and #ATTHACK.

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