More than 360 participants from all over Ukraine offered unique innovative solutions to solve urgent problems of Ukrainian communities, and to make them safer and more secure

Kyiv, 3 November 2020 – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine together with the Ministry of Digital Transformation have selected three winners of the three-day hackathon “Hack for Locals 2.0,” whose projects will soon receive financial and mentoring support to implement their innovative ideas in the communities of Ukraine.

“Hack for Locals 2.0: Safer Communities Hackathon” is the second hackathon for the development of Ukrainian communities launched under the UN Recovery and Peacebuilding Programme. This year’s hackathon aims to strengthen community security through developing innovative technological solutions. Over three days more than 360 participants from all over Ukraine offered a variety of ideas, from a range of inclusive projects to support people with disabilities, promote waste management and support physical and mental wellbeing, to projects on coordinated safety services, evacuation plan development, and projects for training and alerting the population during emergencies.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said the ministry was always ready to support initiatives that develop the regions and improve people's lives: “For the ministry’s part, we will provide informational and mentoring support to the best winning projects. After all, now there is an opportunity not only to realize your professional potential, but also to change the country,” he added.

The three winning teams of this year’s hackathon were named “Don't burn,” “Ward” and “Drop Table Team.”

“Don’t burn” won first place by proposing a project for timely and effective fire response. The team proposed to create a GIS platform for analysis, monitoring and rapid response to fires, using NASA satellite data and data on fires and potentially dangerous fire situations reported by residents of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts via a Telegram-bot.

The second-place “Ward” team developed a prototype mobile application for recognizing objects and the space around them with the help of audio. In addition, the application will be able to read out texts and scan QR-codes. The application is programmed to detect motion, such as when a phone is dropped, to send a SOS-signal to a pre-stored number. This application will help people with disabilities and the elderly to navigate more comfortably, and other users will be able to quickly report a sudden danger thanks to the user-friendly interface.

The third-place “Drop Table Team” produced at the hackathon the ULight street lighting control system, which allows street lighting to be controlled remotely: the app can be used to monitor lighting and report lighting faults, as well as promptly notify community members of unauthorized connections to street lighting networks.

In addition, the three teams “CityGuard,” “IncNet” and “Micromobility Safety School (MSS)” will receive additional mentorships from the UN Recovery and Peacebuilding Programme. And the “IncNet” and “Ward” teams received special prizes from the Luhansk Association of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities. Yarema Hrytsyshyn, from the partner company ELEKS, additionally noted the team of the “ATC-bot” project, and the partners from the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine expressed their readiness to support the first three prizes in terms of organization and the media. The Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories also expressed its readiness to promote the implementation of the projects that won the first three prizes.

UNDP Resident Representative Dafina Gercheva said that this year's hackathon was fully focused on building safer communities, while community security and social cohesion continue to be the cornerstone of UNDP’s activities in eastern Ukraine.

“We are very pleased that this year's hackathon has managed to bring together so many enthusiastic people who are ready to share their innovative vision and implement their ideas to make communities safer,” Gercheva said. Their zeal and perseverance are very inspiring and accelerate our joint movement to build safe, inclusive and prosperous communities not only in the east, but all across Ukraine.”

This year’s event was organized by the Happy Monday Career Development Platform and the Innovation Agency Centre42 under the UN Recovery and Peacebuilding Programme and in partnership with the Ministry of Digital Transformation, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts State Administrations with financial support from the European Union and the governments of Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.

Background

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

Thirteen international partners support the Programme: the European Union (EU), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, and the governments of Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

Media enquiries

Maksym Kytsiuk, Communications Associate, the UN Recovery and Peacebuilding Programme, maksym.kytsiuk@undp.org, +380 63 576 1839