April 22, 2019 at 20:16The city accepted: three megatons of hackathons in Nizhny Novgorod
The subjective opinion of one simple observer
Usually articles about hackathons on Habré are not particularly interesting: small meetings to solve narrow problems, professional discussions within the framework of a single technology, corporate sessions. Actually, it was on such hackathons that I had to be. Therefore, having glanced at the Global City Hackathon site on Friday, I ... was forced to go to my office. Although I have a remote, but very dense and loaded work, I reasoned something like this: I’ll come there, there are a lot of tables, I’ll run into a laptop, I will work, and with one ear and eye I will monitor what is happening. There were no seats - in general, neither on the tables, nor on the chairs, nor on the lintel at some iron garbage, nor even on the sofas behind the stands. It immediately became clear that this is a hackathon ++. Well, I went to him on Saturday and Sunday - and did not regret it. Who is with me - please, under cat.
Caution, there are photos that can eat traffic (but this is not a photo story!)
The first Global City Hackathon was held on April 19-21, 2019 in Nizhny Novgorod - a big event, in three days of which the developers, together with their teams, had to offer solutions in three categories.
They had no restrictions on the technologies used and the stack, no framework for creativity and thought, no boundaries for the team structure - there were only 48 hours (someone worked at night) to create a solution and prepare a pitch. There were also experts who continuously advised the teams, helped prepare presentations (as I understood, the organizers took care of the template too, because at the final pitch the slides were designed in the same style and had an almost perfect structure for the pitch).
The hackathon took place in the building of the former Mayak clothing factory in a very cool and authentic atmosphere. The building is located on the very banks of the Volga, opposite Strelka - among other things, it is a very prominent place with wonderful air across the road: many participants went out to air because the building was not hot, but rather noisy and stressful.
Arrow View
Because our city is a huge IT cluster, in which many offices of IT companies are concentrated with large tasks and good salaries. Moreover, a whole layer of developers sits around their homes and their locations and works on major international projects such as, for example, SAP. I will not paint in detail, this was here , here, and even in my announcement .
The governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region Gleb Nikitin spoke about the structure and income of IT companies in the panel discussion “Cities in the era of the fourth industrial revolution” (held inside the hackathon).
I quote from TASS: "We have a good base for the development of integrated solutions (in the field of IT) that can be exported. An IT cluster has been created, which includes, including international organizations, leaders in their industries. There are about 70 such companies in the cluster, all in the region - about 300 companies working in the IT sector. The annual volume of decisions they make is 26 billion rubles, about 80% of the revenue is export, a code that is written for foreign partners . "I am sure his words are as close to the truth as possible, moreover, I think that there are even more exports, not everyone calculated: -)
The first day of the hackathon was the day of setting goals, introducing experts, and greeting leaders of government bodies, the municipality and commercial structures. VEB, Rostelecom, Sberbank, RVC, GAZ - these companies not only supported the participants, some of them presented their stands, and not with some sweets and booklets, namely "to touch." The same day, the main lectures and thematic discussions were held, which helped the teams to direct their thoughts and ideas in the right direction - experts from all over the world spoke. I managed to listen to some lectures online - they were really useful, a minimum of water, a maximum of experience and expertise (uh, you still had to squeeze your laptop somewhere and stay!).
But the second and third day, as they say, with the eyes of an eyewitness with complete immersion.
Workshops with experts went all day for the teams, where they could discuss everything: from interface design to attracting investors. The teams managed the time very wisely: some worked with experts and at workshops, some sawed code and did MVP (about prototypes it will be lower - this is something).
In the main hall there were performances declared in the style of TED. I emphasize the word “stated” because according to my subjective feelings and my experience of listening to TED, only one of the speakers approached the style and spirit. The rest were somewhat divorced from reality - however, this is already boring, but it was excellent. Impressed by the report of Natalia Seltsova, the Laboratory of the Internet of Things, Sberbank is a comprehensive and correct approach to IoT not as a toy, but as a really applicable infrastructure. Of course, you need to grow a lot first of all, first of all, to the user's consciousness, but such a vision of an individual specialist says that IoT remains, it remains to find forms and integration.
But the most important was the third day - for the teams he was the most intense, literally knocking over. They had to complete their decisions, consult with experts in a very limited time, present products (more precisely, prototypes) during pitch sessions in selected areas, and the best - once again present the decision at the final pitch session before the jury (on a second, including the mayor, governor and federal minister), experts and a whole audience of visitors, participants, and journalists (again there was no place to fall an apple). This is a wild, almost unrealistic mode of operation, in which you have two terrible enemies: time and nerves.
Now I will be the most subjective, because I looked at decisions not through the eyes of a government representative or investment expert, but through the eyes of a former engineer, tester - that is, I tried to delve into how much it is needed in principle, how feasible and how much it needs and is feasible to converge .
The first to enter the scene was the Mixar team (guys from the Nizhny Novgorod company Mixar, winners of all computer vision hackathons for 2018 and 2019). The guys suggested a prototype of the Accessible City mobile app for visually impaired people. The application is controlled by voice (with the help of Alice), helps to build a route, brings a person to a stop and “meets” buses - recognizes the number of the approaching route and tells its owner that it is his bus. Then the application reports that they and the owner of the smartphone reached the desired stop and it is time to exit. Visually impaired Ilya Lebedev took part in the development and testing of the application.
Mixar team. Photo from Global City Hackathon on Facebook
The guys did not just show the prototype, but shot a video about how it works and the whole audience saw how Ilya set the route, reached the nearest stop to Mayak, and the application first recognized 45, and then the desired 40th route. It looked very simple and only the engineers guessed which stack and how many neural networks were behind these applications.
For me, this has become an application of the future: simple and reliable from the point of view of the interface, mobile, universal, easily scalable to any country, any language. It was obvious that the guys understand what they are doing and want it to work quickly, and not in some vague launch perspective. In a word, mo-lod-ts. For me it was a platinum evening pitch.
The second participant was announced by the presenter as a recognized leader, so after Mixar I was expecting quite a bomb. However, the presentation itself was saturated with a not very correct message (let’s leave it to the conscience of the author), but the product is very interesting - the geo-location mutual assistance application “Help is near”. The application should help to request and receive the necessary and competent help from people nearby, to assemble a team and resources, if one cannot cope. Naturally, it is aimed at systematic assistance. Since the project developer is a marketer, he particularly stood out as a competent commercial part of the product, which in the current conditions is very important for increasing interest in your work (alas, not alas, this is a fact): each act of mutual assistance in the application will be taken into account and social capital will be formed, which can be transformed into a loyalty program for companies. Also in the application is expected an event map, analytics, competitive moment by region. With the help of neural networks and artificial intelligence, the author hopes to create the most secure application (you must admit, this is very important).
“Help is near” and highly rated by experts
In this application, I personally was very pleased with the holistic approach, the opportunity to return to the social responsibility of business, the way to solve individual problems quickly, the emotional component (we are all a bit of a lifesaver). From the point of view of the developer, I liked the idea of gamification - this is not the only conceived project with achievements, but here the gaming and enthralling component is most obvious.
The prototype has not been demonstrated, the mobile application for iOS and Android is declared as planned in the future.
The next pitch was dedicated to the cute and simple RECYCLECODE application, which should quickly provide people with information on product packaging by its barcode. A person points the camera, opened in the application, at the barcode, and sees what the package consists of and where the nearest collection point for this type of garbage is located. The guys showed everyone a working prototype right on their mobile phone.
The project seems simple, but in fact it is quite resource-intensive, complex from the point of view of integration and geolocation, it requires the work of users (who will fill the directories) and the manufacturers themselves. It’s clear that this story is not even tomorrow, but a little later, but if I were the mayor, I would pay attention to this project and put the city into pilots in terms of environmental friendliness.
Another pitch was dedicated to the problem of sewage. The same story - geolocation, management of scavengers, competent allocation of resources, call of scavengers to places where there is no sewage. The project received the sweet name "Senya" and was liked by the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod Vladimir Panov.
Senya and Co.
After the sewage system, the speakers returned to the garbage issues - and one of the winning projects was presented - #AntiMusor. This is a very complex system based on big data, designed to help manage the collection and transportation of garbage, optimize the workflow and logistics, and effectively manage the fleet of garbage trucks.
The guys presented an amazing visualization of the prototype, where online you can track the routes of full and empty garbage trucks, as well as the fact of cleaning or filling garbage cans. It looked just cosmic :-) The system is actually a simulator of garbage collection and transportation processes with the possibility of dynamic route formation and analytics for further optimization of these processes.
The project looked very logical, architecturally accurate and competent (the entire detailed architecture of the project was presented in terms of modules and functionality - but I will not upload the slide, I would attribute this to classified information). There is even no question about the benefits - the problem of garbage collection in big cities is one of the priority ones.
The very brain- making project for me turned out to be the ParkingSim pitch for the guys from the Nizhny Novgorod architectural studio DUTCH on how to defeat parking hell. It was a complex mixture of visualization, architectural design, and development. And since nature, on me, a child of two builders, had a rest, my topographical cretinism painfully howled in time with the awareness of the project's prospects.
In general, I’ll explain as an engineer - I hope the guys will not be offended. This application is a simulator of parking in time in a specific geographical space. Relatively speaking, you park a car at a pharmacy, a neighbor from the third entrance - at the first, from the first - on the side of the road, etc. The system analyzes the parking time and the distance from the driver’s place of residence (work) to his car, and suggests developing a more logical option. And most importantly, it accumulates data that will allow architects of new residential complexes not to squeeze window-to-window structures, but to correctly plan the territory taking into account requirements for parking spaces (including underground levels).
Separately, I note the charismatic team leader Kirill Pernatkin - this is such a gambling and burning speaker that you believe in him. Well, professionalism is powerful there, no doubt.
The guys from the track "Open City" performed the project "Good City" - a system of interaction with government authorities that allows you to quickly and conveniently track citizens' appeals, their nature, geo-referencing and other information. This is a great example of the interaction of power and society in an open digital environment where bureaucratic moments can be combined with a humane approach. The project reminded me of the “Angry Citizen” with something, and with something - the complaints section in the Public Services. In any case, such decisions are not superfluous.
The last project among the participants of the final pitch session was called “Socialest” from the team with the mysterious name Snogo / Begunok team. It was again a social interaction service, where inside the application you can find accomplices (and even better like-minded people) for good and useful things. The guys presented a prototype of the application, in which it was already possible to see important points: through gamification, activity categories (for example, volunteering or education), levels of the “player”, the application has interesting social goals: developing a state role, stimulating proactive residents, the base of such residents, the formation of a social community and may even go international.
At the end of the pitches, the jury went to a short meeting. I stood not far from them and tried to catch the winners - most of all I wanted to win Mixar, because this is the most important solution for some of the most vulnerable - visually impaired. The jury included the Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Maxim Oreshkin, the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region Gleb Nikitin, the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod Vladimir Panov, managing partner of the Philtech Initiative Alena Svetushkova.
And ... yes, yes, yes! Three projects will go to large European Smart City, where they will hold meetings with local experts, representatives of municipalities and IT communities that have implemented large digital projects:
Winners!
Participants were also awarded training courses, gifts from organizers and partners. As an inveterate Khabrovsk citizen, I was pleased to see Skyeng courses (as they are for those who go abroad to meetings) and invitations to conferences from JUG.ru (the company was represented by Andrey Dmitriev real_ales and for the award, among the rewards) rightly - he chose Mixar, they will take the maximum from conferences). Both companies have cool blogs on Habré.
Experts and partners
The organization of the hackathon at all levels was practically without jambs, which is simply an incredible achievement for the first event in its class. Personally, I did not have enough water and space, but this is due to the huge flow of participants and just visitors and listeners of the hackathon. A huge plus - broadcasts from 360-cameras on social networks, this has expanded coverage.
Teams focused
The lead of the main track, or rather, the moderator of the open program, was Gene Kolesnikov from Singularity University, a futurist and visionary of artificial intelligence and robotics. He is so permeated with the topic of technology, apparently so a fan that he managed to hide small technical overlays and delays of parts of tracks behind a philosophical and technical conversation. He was well oriented, joked and held a rather fragmented, noisy and versatile hall.
Gene and IT Philosophy
For the Global City Hackathon hackathon, a special mobile application was developed with a description, program, partners, experts, a map - in general, everything that a participant, expert, journalist or such a curious listener like me would need. You could create your own program, get an alert about the imminent start of the desired track, and see your activities in your account.
“Lighthouse” is a building of tremendous beauty and grandeur, but, frankly speaking, it’s vintage and retro inside. The organizers made excellent lighting decisions - not cutting, but also interesting, hanging cool posters on the walls. The result was a very warm and comfortable loft atmosphere. And I even want the brick walls always sticking out like this, the stairs, the dark passages and the rest would be authentic.
The ceiling of the main hall and the light on it.
The wall opposite the toilet changed the backlight, but not the meanings :-)
They were at the Rostelecom booth and near the stage. Everyone could come up and appreciate what it is. There were many who wanted to - literally the bravest not to tear.
At the Sberbank stand, you could see and touch a tiny branch of the bank, Rostelecom deployed an interesting interactive touch stand with the latest smart achievements for life in the city. At Sberbank, it was possible to test the docdoc telemedicine system. The stern stand of GAZ OJSC spoke about intelligent solutions for controlling cars and car traffic. The coolest was the SAROVA water stand, where you could grab a bottle, and downstairs in two rows, CRT televisions reminded of the technological gap between the recent past and the real present.
Rostelecom's stand
This was the only chance to steal an ATM
Representatives of the government were at the hackathon for three days, talked, joked, and were attentive to almost every project presented. It was unexpected and rather inspiring - the real, genuine interest of the governor and the mayor was felt. At the same time, everyone walked quite calmly, did not push anyone and did not wipe the security, there was a complete atmosphere of partnership. I had to see a formalized, dictated attitude "on a piece of paper", so such changes could not please me as a specialist and as a resident of Nizhny Novgorod.
In principle, ready-made teams come to the hackathon that are united, with the idea, somewhere, maybe even with MVP. Therefore, many are embarrassed to come to the hackathons and take part. However, there were teams that gathered on Friday right at the site, and on Sunday already presented a draft at their pitch sessions. One of these was the Privet! NN project team, which came up with the idea of a platform for connecting guides and tourists. By the way, Rostelecom called this project one of the most rapidly implemented. In addition, in 2021, Nizhny Novgorod is 800 years old - there will be demand. So, you don’t need to be afraid to create teams and offer ideas. Moreover, participation in hackathons includes career opportunities, investments, and even PR of your company.
Part of the Privet! NN team
Three days passed as one, the participants were met by a signature Nizhny Novgorod sunset, ideas met their new life. How will the decisions be implemented, in what timeframe, in what form, I hope, we will learn over time. But, as Gleb Nikitin said, wherever the second Global City Hackathon takes place, "in all regions they will remember that the first was Lower."
A start.
Nizhny Novgorod sunsets are amazing every day - still the capital of sunsets
By the way, if you plan a business trip to Nizhny Novgorod, choose June 24th - we will have another unique and absolutely free event - the Paris-Beijing retro-rally stage :-)
Usually articles about hackathons on Habré are not particularly interesting: small meetings to solve narrow problems, professional discussions within the framework of a single technology, corporate sessions. Actually, it was on such hackathons that I had to be. Therefore, having glanced at the Global City Hackathon site on Friday, I ... was forced to go to my office. Although I have a remote, but very dense and loaded work, I reasoned something like this: I’ll come there, there are a lot of tables, I’ll run into a laptop, I will work, and with one ear and eye I will monitor what is happening. There were no seats - in general, neither on the tables, nor on the chairs, nor on the lintel at some iron garbage, nor even on the sofas behind the stands. It immediately became clear that this is a hackathon ++. Well, I went to him on Saturday and Sunday - and did not regret it. Who is with me - please, under cat.
Caution, there are photos that can eat traffic (but this is not a photo story!)
A bit of background
The first Global City Hackathon was held on April 19-21, 2019 in Nizhny Novgorod - a big event, in three days of which the developers, together with their teams, had to offer solutions in three categories.
- Accessible city - proposals for the development of an accessible urban environment, including for people with limited mobility, support for older people and people with disabilities. This is a very important category, if only because each of us at some point may be among such citizens: injured or fractured, in the last stages of pregnancy, with three children and a stroller, etc. - that is, in situations where you need the help of other people and some additional, thoughtful convenience.
- A city without waste. Transition to a closed-loop economy. Efficiency and transparency of work on the collection, removal and disposal of garbage, reuse of resources, eco-monitoring, environmental education. I will not lie if I say that this is an important story “from Moscow to the outskirts”, because we generate garbage a lot (hello, polyethylene, bottles, packaging, etc.), we experience problems with both solid household waste and with sewers, especially in rural areas and suburbs (I can call the sewage system a hundred times to pump the septic tank in the country, but I can’t bear any responsibility for where he dumps this business, and precedents are very unpleasant).
- Open city. Collection, storage, processing and provision of data to meet the needs of urban services, the business community, citizens and tourists. At first glance, the story is not as important and relevant as the two previous ones, but in fact, this includes issues of volunteering, housing and communal services management, dialogue with the authorities, and public relations. It is like an information shell, a base, the basis of all other issues.
They had no restrictions on the technologies used and the stack, no framework for creativity and thought, no boundaries for the team structure - there were only 48 hours (someone worked at night) to create a solution and prepare a pitch. There were also experts who continuously advised the teams, helped prepare presentations (as I understood, the organizers took care of the template too, because at the final pitch the slides were designed in the same style and had an almost perfect structure for the pitch).
The hackathon took place in the building of the former Mayak clothing factory in a very cool and authentic atmosphere. The building is located on the very banks of the Volga, opposite Strelka - among other things, it is a very prominent place with wonderful air across the road: many participants went out to air because the building was not hot, but rather noisy and stressful.
Arrow View
Short facts
- Global City Hackathon is an initiative of the Council on the Global Future Agenda for Russia of the World Economic Forum.
- The organizers of the project in Nizhny Novgorod: the regional government, the city administration, VEB, Strategy Partners and the Philtech Initiative.
- The project is implemented in partnership with Sberbank, Rostelecom, RVC, the Industrial Development Fund, the Russian Export Center and with the support of Promsvyazbank.
- Nizhny Novgorod was the first city in Russia to host the Global City Hackathon.
Why Nizhny Novgorod?
Because our city is a huge IT cluster, in which many offices of IT companies are concentrated with large tasks and good salaries. Moreover, a whole layer of developers sits around their homes and their locations and works on major international projects such as, for example, SAP. I will not paint in detail, this was here , here, and even in my announcement .
The governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region Gleb Nikitin spoke about the structure and income of IT companies in the panel discussion “Cities in the era of the fourth industrial revolution” (held inside the hackathon).
I quote from TASS: "We have a good base for the development of integrated solutions (in the field of IT) that can be exported. An IT cluster has been created, which includes, including international organizations, leaders in their industries. There are about 70 such companies in the cluster, all in the region - about 300 companies working in the IT sector. The annual volume of decisions they make is 26 billion rubles, about 80% of the revenue is export, a code that is written for foreign partners . "I am sure his words are as close to the truth as possible, moreover, I think that there are even more exports, not everyone calculated: -)
Three days that can turn the world around
The first day of the hackathon was the day of setting goals, introducing experts, and greeting leaders of government bodies, the municipality and commercial structures. VEB, Rostelecom, Sberbank, RVC, GAZ - these companies not only supported the participants, some of them presented their stands, and not with some sweets and booklets, namely "to touch." The same day, the main lectures and thematic discussions were held, which helped the teams to direct their thoughts and ideas in the right direction - experts from all over the world spoke. I managed to listen to some lectures online - they were really useful, a minimum of water, a maximum of experience and expertise (uh, you still had to squeeze your laptop somewhere and stay!).
But the second and third day, as they say, with the eyes of an eyewitness with complete immersion.
Workshops with experts went all day for the teams, where they could discuss everything: from interface design to attracting investors. The teams managed the time very wisely: some worked with experts and at workshops, some sawed code and did MVP (about prototypes it will be lower - this is something).
In the main hall there were performances declared in the style of TED. I emphasize the word “stated” because according to my subjective feelings and my experience of listening to TED, only one of the speakers approached the style and spirit. The rest were somewhat divorced from reality - however, this is already boring, but it was excellent. Impressed by the report of Natalia Seltsova, the Laboratory of the Internet of Things, Sberbank is a comprehensive and correct approach to IoT not as a toy, but as a really applicable infrastructure. Of course, you need to grow a lot first of all, first of all, to the user's consciousness, but such a vision of an individual specialist says that IoT remains, it remains to find forms and integration.
But the most important was the third day - for the teams he was the most intense, literally knocking over. They had to complete their decisions, consult with experts in a very limited time, present products (more precisely, prototypes) during pitch sessions in selected areas, and the best - once again present the decision at the final pitch session before the jury (on a second, including the mayor, governor and federal minister), experts and a whole audience of visitors, participants, and journalists (again there was no place to fall an apple). This is a wild, almost unrealistic mode of operation, in which you have two terrible enemies: time and nerves.
Final, pitch and fear for the winner
Now I will be the most subjective, because I looked at decisions not through the eyes of a government representative or investment expert, but through the eyes of a former engineer, tester - that is, I tried to delve into how much it is needed in principle, how feasible and how much it needs and is feasible to converge .
The first to enter the scene was the Mixar team (guys from the Nizhny Novgorod company Mixar, winners of all computer vision hackathons for 2018 and 2019). The guys suggested a prototype of the Accessible City mobile app for visually impaired people. The application is controlled by voice (with the help of Alice), helps to build a route, brings a person to a stop and “meets” buses - recognizes the number of the approaching route and tells its owner that it is his bus. Then the application reports that they and the owner of the smartphone reached the desired stop and it is time to exit. Visually impaired Ilya Lebedev took part in the development and testing of the application.
Mixar team. Photo from Global City Hackathon on Facebook
Excerpt from the presentation (slides are highlighted, so I quote them):
In Russia, a huge number of people with congenital or acquired blindness and visually impaired: blind - 300,000, visually impaired - 2.5 million. They actively use smartphones, because for such people it’s important a way to contact the world. It is believed that when boarding a public transport, a blind person experiences the same stress as a pilot of a passenger airliner during an emergency landing.
There is a Talking City system in St. Petersburg, but the cost of equipment in one city is 1.5 billion rubles, the system confuses oncoming and passing buses, and one subscriber unit costs 15,000 rubles. In addition, the "Talking City" does not work with all vehicles and is inaccessible to nonresident.
The system developed by the team does not require any additional equipment, is 2000 times cheaper than analogues, works with any transport in any language, does not require an Internet connection and a database.
The guys did not just show the prototype, but shot a video about how it works and the whole audience saw how Ilya set the route, reached the nearest stop to Mayak, and the application first recognized 45, and then the desired 40th route. It looked very simple and only the engineers guessed which stack and how many neural networks were behind these applications.
For me, this has become an application of the future: simple and reliable from the point of view of the interface, mobile, universal, easily scalable to any country, any language. It was obvious that the guys understand what they are doing and want it to work quickly, and not in some vague launch perspective. In a word, mo-lod-ts. For me it was a platinum evening pitch.
The second participant was announced by the presenter as a recognized leader, so after Mixar I was expecting quite a bomb. However, the presentation itself was saturated with a not very correct message (let’s leave it to the conscience of the author), but the product is very interesting - the geo-location mutual assistance application “Help is near”. The application should help to request and receive the necessary and competent help from people nearby, to assemble a team and resources, if one cannot cope. Naturally, it is aimed at systematic assistance. Since the project developer is a marketer, he particularly stood out as a competent commercial part of the product, which in the current conditions is very important for increasing interest in your work (alas, not alas, this is a fact): each act of mutual assistance in the application will be taken into account and social capital will be formed, which can be transformed into a loyalty program for companies. Also in the application is expected an event map, analytics, competitive moment by region. With the help of neural networks and artificial intelligence, the author hopes to create the most secure application (you must admit, this is very important).
“Help is near” and highly rated by experts
Quote from the presentation:
Every third resident of the Nizhny Novgorod region needs regular help from others due to restrictions on urban infrastructure. This is a serious burden on social assistance services: people with disabilities, 300 thousand - single and old people, 120 thousand - mothers with children under 4 years old, 200 thousand - people with time restrictions.
In this application, I personally was very pleased with the holistic approach, the opportunity to return to the social responsibility of business, the way to solve individual problems quickly, the emotional component (we are all a bit of a lifesaver). From the point of view of the developer, I liked the idea of gamification - this is not the only conceived project with achievements, but here the gaming and enthralling component is most obvious.
The prototype has not been demonstrated, the mobile application for iOS and Android is declared as planned in the future.
The next pitch was dedicated to the cute and simple RECYCLECODE application, which should quickly provide people with information on product packaging by its barcode. A person points the camera, opened in the application, at the barcode, and sees what the package consists of and where the nearest collection point for this type of garbage is located. The guys showed everyone a working prototype right on their mobile phone.
The project seems simple, but in fact it is quite resource-intensive, complex from the point of view of integration and geolocation, it requires the work of users (who will fill the directories) and the manufacturers themselves. It’s clear that this story is not even tomorrow, but a little later, but if I were the mayor, I would pay attention to this project and put the city into pilots in terms of environmental friendliness.
Quotation from the presentation:
There are few recycled materials in Russia, many landfills: in Germany, 99.6% of waste is recycled, in France - 93%, in Italy - 52%, the EU average - 60%, in Russia - 5-7%. People do not know which packaging can be recycled, which means labeling on the packaging where the waste collection points are.
Another pitch was dedicated to the problem of sewage. The same story - geolocation, management of scavengers, competent allocation of resources, call of scavengers to places where there is no sewage. The project received the sweet name "Senya" and was liked by the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod Vladimir Panov.
Senya and Co.
Quote from the presentation:
22.6% of Russia's population does not have access to a centralized sewage system. In 2017, in every second water sample in the recreation zone of Nizhny Novgorod there were deviations from the norm according to microbiological indicators.
We can talk about any possibilities, but if we just don’t have a pot, then with everything else there will be great difficulties.
- Director of the Russian Water Supply Association
After the sewage system, the speakers returned to the garbage issues - and one of the winning projects was presented - #AntiMusor. This is a very complex system based on big data, designed to help manage the collection and transportation of garbage, optimize the workflow and logistics, and effectively manage the fleet of garbage trucks.
The guys presented an amazing visualization of the prototype, where online you can track the routes of full and empty garbage trucks, as well as the fact of cleaning or filling garbage cans. It looked just cosmic :-) The system is actually a simulator of garbage collection and transportation processes with the possibility of dynamic route formation and analytics for further optimization of these processes.
The project looked very logical, architecturally accurate and competent (the entire detailed architecture of the project was presented in terms of modules and functionality - but I will not upload the slide, I would attribute this to classified information). There is even no question about the benefits - the problem of garbage collection in big cities is one of the priority ones.
The very brain- making project for me turned out to be the ParkingSim pitch for the guys from the Nizhny Novgorod architectural studio DUTCH on how to defeat parking hell. It was a complex mixture of visualization, architectural design, and development. And since nature, on me, a child of two builders, had a rest, my topographical cretinism painfully howled in time with the awareness of the project's prospects.
In general, I’ll explain as an engineer - I hope the guys will not be offended. This application is a simulator of parking in time in a specific geographical space. Relatively speaking, you park a car at a pharmacy, a neighbor from the third entrance - at the first, from the first - on the side of the road, etc. The system analyzes the parking time and the distance from the driver’s place of residence (work) to his car, and suggests developing a more logical option. And most importantly, it accumulates data that will allow architects of new residential complexes not to squeeze window-to-window structures, but to correctly plan the territory taking into account requirements for parking spaces (including underground levels).
Separately, I note the charismatic team leader Kirill Pernatkin - this is such a gambling and burning speaker that you believe in him. Well, professionalism is powerful there, no doubt.
The guys from the track "Open City" performed the project "Good City" - a system of interaction with government authorities that allows you to quickly and conveniently track citizens' appeals, their nature, geo-referencing and other information. This is a great example of the interaction of power and society in an open digital environment where bureaucratic moments can be combined with a humane approach. The project reminded me of the “Angry Citizen” with something, and with something - the complaints section in the Public Services. In any case, such decisions are not superfluous.
The last project among the participants of the final pitch session was called “Socialest” from the team with the mysterious name Snogo / Begunok team. It was again a social interaction service, where inside the application you can find accomplices (and even better like-minded people) for good and useful things. The guys presented a prototype of the application, in which it was already possible to see important points: through gamification, activity categories (for example, volunteering or education), levels of the “player”, the application has interesting social goals: developing a state role, stimulating proactive residents, the base of such residents, the formation of a social community and may even go international.
At the end of the pitches, the jury went to a short meeting. I stood not far from them and tried to catch the winners - most of all I wanted to win Mixar, because this is the most important solution for some of the most vulnerable - visually impaired. The jury included the Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Maxim Oreshkin, the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region Gleb Nikitin, the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod Vladimir Panov, managing partner of the Philtech Initiative Alena Svetushkova.
And ... yes, yes, yes! Three projects will go to large European Smart City, where they will hold meetings with local experts, representatives of municipalities and IT communities that have implemented large digital projects:
- Track Accessible city - Mixar team will go to Lyon.
- Track Wasteless City - Team # Anti-Garbage will go to Amsterdam.
- Track Open City - the ParkingSim team will leave for Barcelona.
Winners!
Participants were also awarded training courses, gifts from organizers and partners. As an inveterate Khabrovsk citizen, I was pleased to see Skyeng courses (as they are for those who go abroad to meetings) and invitations to conferences from JUG.ru (the company was represented by Andrey Dmitriev real_ales and for the award, among the rewards) rightly - he chose Mixar, they will take the maximum from conferences). Both companies have cool blogs on Habré.
Experts and partners
Facts about the hackathon that surprised, pleased, upset
Organization
The organization of the hackathon at all levels was practically without jambs, which is simply an incredible achievement for the first event in its class. Personally, I did not have enough water and space, but this is due to the huge flow of participants and just visitors and listeners of the hackathon. A huge plus - broadcasts from 360-cameras on social networks, this has expanded coverage.
Teams focused
Leading
The lead of the main track, or rather, the moderator of the open program, was Gene Kolesnikov from Singularity University, a futurist and visionary of artificial intelligence and robotics. He is so permeated with the topic of technology, apparently so a fan that he managed to hide small technical overlays and delays of parts of tracks behind a philosophical and technical conversation. He was well oriented, joked and held a rather fragmented, noisy and versatile hall.
Gene and IT Philosophy
Mobile app
For the Global City Hackathon hackathon, a special mobile application was developed with a description, program, partners, experts, a map - in general, everything that a participant, expert, journalist or such a curious listener like me would need. You could create your own program, get an alert about the imminent start of the desired track, and see your activities in your account.
Light and walls
“Lighthouse” is a building of tremendous beauty and grandeur, but, frankly speaking, it’s vintage and retro inside. The organizers made excellent lighting decisions - not cutting, but also interesting, hanging cool posters on the walls. The result was a very warm and comfortable loft atmosphere. And I even want the brick walls always sticking out like this, the stairs, the dark passages and the rest would be authentic.
The ceiling of the main hall and the light on it.
The wall opposite the toilet changed the backlight, but not the meanings :-)
Virtual reality glasses
They were at the Rostelecom booth and near the stage. Everyone could come up and appreciate what it is. There were many who wanted to - literally the bravest not to tear.
Company stands
At the Sberbank stand, you could see and touch a tiny branch of the bank, Rostelecom deployed an interesting interactive touch stand with the latest smart achievements for life in the city. At Sberbank, it was possible to test the docdoc telemedicine system. The stern stand of GAZ OJSC spoke about intelligent solutions for controlling cars and car traffic. The coolest was the SAROVA water stand, where you could grab a bottle, and downstairs in two rows, CRT televisions reminded of the technological gap between the recent past and the real present.
Rostelecom's stand
This was the only chance to steal an ATM
Dialogue between authorities and participants
Representatives of the government were at the hackathon for three days, talked, joked, and were attentive to almost every project presented. It was unexpected and rather inspiring - the real, genuine interest of the governor and the mayor was felt. At the same time, everyone walked quite calmly, did not push anyone and did not wipe the security, there was a complete atmosphere of partnership. I had to see a formalized, dictated attitude "on a piece of paper", so such changes could not please me as a specialist and as a resident of Nizhny Novgorod.
Interesting teams
In principle, ready-made teams come to the hackathon that are united, with the idea, somewhere, maybe even with MVP. Therefore, many are embarrassed to come to the hackathons and take part. However, there were teams that gathered on Friday right at the site, and on Sunday already presented a draft at their pitch sessions. One of these was the Privet! NN project team, which came up with the idea of a platform for connecting guides and tourists. By the way, Rostelecom called this project one of the most rapidly implemented. In addition, in 2021, Nizhny Novgorod is 800 years old - there will be demand. So, you don’t need to be afraid to create teams and offer ideas. Moreover, participation in hackathons includes career opportunities, investments, and even PR of your company.
Part of the Privet! NN team
Three days passed as one, the participants were met by a signature Nizhny Novgorod sunset, ideas met their new life. How will the decisions be implemented, in what timeframe, in what form, I hope, we will learn over time. But, as Gleb Nikitin said, wherever the second Global City Hackathon takes place, "in all regions they will remember that the first was Lower."
A start.
Nizhny Novgorod sunsets are amazing every day - still the capital of sunsets
Special thanks for the Hackathon and hi Igor Pozumentovu and portal it52.info , where you can learn interesting events from the world of IT Nizhny Novgorod ( Telegram channel attached ).
By the way, if you plan a business trip to Nizhny Novgorod, choose June 24th - we will have another unique and absolutely free event - the Paris-Beijing retro-rally stage :-)