Sponsors, Technical Partners & Supporters

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The event is currently organised with corporate support from Google and Facebook. Additional sponsorship by companies and support by Civil Society Organisations is very welcome, as well as political participation by EU institutions’ representatives. Check out our supporters from the 2011 edition here. If you are interested, please contact us.

• Sponsoring: companies can sponsor the event by providing financial sponsorship.
• Technical partnership: companies also provide engineering support by providing technical advice before and during the hackathon.
• Support: civil society organisations and companies are welcome to express their support by being listed on the website and providing support in the outreach to developer communities and/or children/parents/teachers.

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• All
• /Sponsors & Technical Partners
• /Supporters

Choose your Track & Apply!

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Please note that applications are now closed. The H4K EUhackathon revolves around two tracks, of which each winner or winning team will be awarded a money prize of 5000,00 Euro. The selected applicants will be invited to Brussels for the whole 2 days of the event, their travel and accommodation costs will be covered by the H4K EUhackathon organisers, courtesy of our sponsors.

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The objective of the initiative is not to necessarily end up with fully completed projects, but rather to raise awareness and encourage debate around these issues, while at same time generating innovative ideas and solutions to tackle them. At the same time, it is important to understand that everything (products or ideas for solutions) developed during the hackathon would be aimed at children, parents and teachers. Therefore, solutions need to be user-friendly and simple enough for kids to understand and use. We have therefore put a separate Suggestions page to get as much input as possible, and we encourage you to visit it!  

Rules

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Phase 1: Procedure to respond to the Call for Applications

• Eligibility: The 2012 EUhackathon is open to all individuals who are at least 18 years old. Applicants under the age of 18 will be asked for parental authorisation evidence.

• Deadline for Applications: You must submit your application using the online form by 30 April 2012 at noon CET.

• Participants: All eligible individuals can register to and participate in the 2012 EUhackathon, either as an individual participant or team up with other eligible participants. Team entries will require a designated team member taking up the formal role of ‘team captain’, acting as sole representative for all communication.

• Result dissemination: Participants retain their copyright, but need to agree that their projects will be made available online for free to the community under a GPLv3 or Apache v2.0 license – as these licenses/versions have explicit patent releases built in.

• Submission: Interested participants for each track will be asked beforehand to submit a project proposal detailing the main features of their tool, the data to be collected, and the methods envisaged to do so. Participants will be allowed to choose to develop a new application from scratch or to improve and expand on the capabilities of existing open-source code projects available. The participants would be able to register individually or in small teams (3 to 5 people). Participants will be selected on the basis of the right mixture of skills (from development to graphics design).

• Deliverables: Participants are expected to build user-friendly multi-platform tools.

Phase 2: Assessment Criteria for selected developpers

The projects in the two parallel tracks will be judged based on the following criteria:

• Their user experience and appeal;
• Their potential to respond to the needs identified in the relevant track;
• Their potential to generate education & awareness raising potential amongst the target audience; and;
• The respect for privacy aspects.

Jury

There will be two juries.

1. The ‘experts’ jury will be composed out of a distinguished panel of representatives from:

• EU institutions (or recommended experts);
• Industry; and,
• Civil Society.

2. The ‘users’ jury will be composed of children, parents and teachers.

The opinions of both juries will be consolidated to designate the award winners, the expert jury’s vote weighing in for 2/3 and the ‘users’ jury for 1/3.

Schedule

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Day 1

Ø 8:30 – Registration

Ø 9:00 – Technical presentations

Once the event starts, participants’ competitive and creative spirit is stimulated during the EUhackathon by a 30-hour time constraint to co-create a tool. During the event food, snacks and refreshments will be provided to the participants. Remark: hackers are not obliged to remain all-night as hotel arrangements are made. Those that wish to have the ability.

Ø 9:30 – Start coding

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Day 2

Ø 13:30 – Submission deadline / End of coding / Pitch time

Each hacker / team will have the opportunity to briefly present the tool that was built during the hackathon (5 min max)

Ø 14:30 – Jury convenes behind closed doors

Ø 16:00 – Closing ceremony

The best projects in the in the two parallel tracks will be presented to the audience and receive an award handed over by Vice-President for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes (TBC). [Press to be invited]

Suggestions

Give us your ideas of tools that would be useful for kids, parents or teachers and vote for the suggestions already sent in.

Location of the EUhackathon

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The EUhackathon will take place in Brussels, Belgium. The exact location of the event is still being defined.    

FAQ

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We’ve had several questions about the hackathon, and have tried to answer as best as we could in the Q&A below. Let us know at info[at]euhackathon[dot]eu if you have any questions we’ve missed!

What’s a hackathon?

A hackathon is an event where people get together and develop awesome projects in a short timespan. In the case of this hackathon, it will take place over a 31-hour timespan.

OMG hacking?!

Please note that this EUhackathon is aimed at getting the input of hackers as a positive force, not in the sense of a security threat.

Who’s sponsoring this hackathon?

Our main sponsors can be found here, but many other organisations and individuals have supported this project in various ways, either by giving funds, creating a buzz, suggesting improvements, etc.

Who’s organising this hackathon?

This hackathon is organised by N-square Consulting, a public affairs firm. Click here for more info.

Do I have to develop something all by myself or can I be part of a team?

You can go either way: by yourself or part of a team. Work on your own or put together an All Star team with a back-end developer, a database whiz, and a front-end designer. Whichever way works best for you! However, building a great team allows you to divide responsibilities and spend more time on your strongest areas. We would definitely recommend having a developer/designer combination. You must have a great solution, and if your project is also visually appealing, you maximize your odds of getting noticed.

How to apply as a team?

Now once you’ve put together your All Star team, how do you apply for the EUhackathon?

1. Designate a ‘team captain’. This is the person who will act as our single point of contact for the team.
2. The team captain completes the full application form.
3. After that, each individual team member can apply. In order to clarify that your application is part of a team, we would like to ask you to specify it when filling in the application form here.

What deliverables are expected for each of the tracks?

Participants are expected to build innovative and user-friendly multi-platform tools that fit into one of the two defined tracks, are user-friendly and be easily accessible to children and parents, while respecting privacy rights of users of their tools.

Will there be prizes?

Yes. The winners or winning teams for each track will receive a money prize (to be determined as we are still in sponsoring raising phase).

What about my travel and accommodation costs?

Selected applicants will be invited to come to Brussels for two days, their travel and accommodation costs being taken care of by the EUhackathon organisers, courtesy of its sponsors.

Will there be free food?

Yes.

Will there be free wifi?

Yes.

Do I have to bring my own laptop?

Yes; unfortunately, we can’t provide computers. Please bring anything you’ll need to code (though it’s fine if you share equipment with a teammate).

What if I create something that rocks? Who owns it?

Participants retain their copyright, but need to agree that their projects will be made available online for free to the community under a GPLv3 or Apache v2.0 license – as these licenses/versions have explicit patent releases built in.

Who is on the Jury?

The jury’s composition will be announced closer to the date of the hackathon.

Contact us

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Please use the form below to get in touch with us. Information sent through this form will not be considered as an application.

Your Message

2011 Edition of the EUhackathon

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The EUhackathon's first edition took place in 2011, when about 40 coders from 18 nationalities were selected through a call for application asking them to come to Brussels, Belgium, to show off their coding and designing skills in two parallel contests under the theme ‘Hack4Transparency!’. This was the first-ever ‘hackathon’ within the premises of the European Institutions, more specifically in the European Parliament in Brussels, on 8 and 9 November 2011. More details on the event and the created tools can be found here.

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