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 visit. Therefore, having looked at the Global City Hackathon on Friday, I ... had to leave for my office. Although I have a remote, but very busy and busy job, I reasoned something like this: I’ll come there, there are a lot of tables, I’ll stick with a laptop, I’ll work, and follow what is happening with one ear and eye. There were no seats at all, not on tables, not on chairs, not on the lintel near some iron thing, not 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 - I ask under the cat.
Beware, there are photos that can eat traffic (but this is not a photo report!)
A bit of prehistory
On April 19-21, 2019, the first Global City Hackathon took place in Nizhny Novgorod, a big event during which developers and their teams had to offer solutions in three categories during three days.
- accessible city — proposals for the development of an accessible urban environment, including for people with limited mobility, support for the elderly and people with disabilities. This is a very important category, if only because each of us at some point may be among such citizens: having been 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.
- Wasteless city. Transition to a circular economy. Efficiency and transparency of work on the collection, removal and disposal of waste, reuse of resources, environmental monitoring, environmental education. I won’t lie if I say that this is an important story “from Moscow to the outskirts”, because we generate unmeasured waste (hello, polyethylene, bottles, packaging, etc.), we experience problems with both municipal solid waste and with sewerage, especially in rural areas and the suburbs (I can decently call a vacuum cleaner a hundred times to pump out a septic tank in a country house, but I can’t bear any responsibility for where he dumps this thing, and the precedents are very unpleasant).
- Open city. Collection, storage, processing and provision of data to meet the needs of city services, the business community, citizens and tourists. At first glance, the story is not as important and burning as the previous two, but in fact, this includes issues of volunteering, housing and communal services management, and dialogue with the authorities, and public relations. It is, as it were, an information shell, a base, the basis of all other issues.
They had no restrictions on the technologies and stack used, no limits for creativity and flight of thought, no limits 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 to prepare presentations (as I understood, the organizers also took care of the template - because at the final pitches the slides were designed in the same style and had an almost perfect structure for the pitch).
The hackathon was held in the building of the former Mayak garment factory in a very cool and authentic atmosphere. The building is located on the very bank of the Volga, opposite the Strelka - among other things, it is a very scenic place with great air across the road: many participants went out to get some air, because it was not hot in the building, but rather noisy and tense.
View of the Strelka
Quick Facts
- The Global City Hackathon is an initiative of the Council on the Global Future Agenda for Russia of the World Economic Forum.
- Project organizers in Nizhny Novgorod: regional government, city administration, VEB RF, Strategy Partners and Philtech Initiative.
- The project is being implemented in partnership with PJSC Sberbank, Rostelecom, RVC, the Industrial Development Fund, the Russian Export Center and with the support of PJSC Promsvyazbank.
- Nizhny Novgorod became the first city in Russia to host the Global City Hackathon.
Why Nizhny Novgorod?
Because our city is a huge IT cluster with many offices of IT companies with large tasks and good salaries. Moreover, a whole layer of developers sit at home and in their locations and work on major international projects such as, for example, SAP. I will not paint in detail, it was about it here, here and even in my announcement.
Gleb Nikitin, Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, 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 developing complex solutions (in the field of IT) that can be exported. An IT cluster has been created, which includes, among other things, international organizations and leaders in their industries. There are about 70 such companies in the cluster, in total there are about 300 companies operating in the IT sector in the region. The annual volume of solutions produced by them is 26 billion rubles, about 80% of the revenue is export, the code that is written for foreign partners". I am sure that his words are as close to the truth as possible - moreover, I think that there are even more exports, not everyone was counted 🙂
Three days that can change the world
The first day of the hackathon was the day of task setting, presentation of experts, greetings from the heads of government, 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, but just “to touch”. On 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, I still had to squeeze my laptop somewhere and stay!).
But the second and third days, as they say, through the eyes of an eyewitness with complete immersion.
The teams had workshops with experts throughout the day, where they could discuss everything from interface design to attracting investors. The teams managed their time very wisely: some of them worked with experts and workshops, some sawed the code and made MVP (we will talk about prototypes below - this is something).
In the main hall there were speeches announced in the style of TED. I emphasize the word "stated" because, in my subjective sense and my experience of listening to TED, only one of the speakers came close to style and spirit. The rest were somewhat divorced from reality - however, this is already boring, it was great. I was impressed by the report of Natalia Seltsova, Internet of Things Laboratory, Sberbank - a comprehensive and correct approach to IoT not as a toy, but as a really applicable infrastructure. To a lot, of course, it is necessary to grow, first of all, the consciousness of the user, but such a vision of an individual specialist says that IoT will be, it remains to find forms and integrations.
But the third day was the most important - for the teams it was the most intense, literally knocking you down. They had to complete work with their solutions, go through consultations with experts in a very limited time, present products (more precisely, prototypes) during pitch sessions in selected areas, and the best ones - once again present the solution at the final pitch session in front of the jury (at wait a second, this includes the mayor, the governor and the federal minister), experts and a whole hall of visitors, participants, journalists (again, there was nowhere for the apple to fall). This is a wild, almost unreal mode of operation, in which you have two terrible enemies: time and nerves.
Final, pitches and fear for the winner
Now I will be the most subjective, because I looked at the decisions not through the eyes of a representative of the authorities or an investment expert, but through the eyes of a former engineer, tester - that is, I tried to understand how much it is necessary in principle, how feasible and how much it is necessary and feasible converge at one point .
The Mixar team was the first to take the stage (the guys from , winners of all computer vision hackathons in 2018 and 2019). The guys proposed a prototype of the Accessible City mobile application 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 - it recognizes the number of the approaching route and informs its owner that this is his bus. Then the application informs that they and the owner of the smartphone have reached the desired stop and it's time to leave. Visually impaired Ilya Lebedev took part in the development and testing of the application.
Mixer team. Photo from the Global City Hackathon group on Facebook
An excerpt from the presentation (the slides are overexposed, so I quote from them):
In Russia, there are a huge number of people with congenital or acquired blindness and visually impaired: the blind - 300, the visually impaired - 000 million. They actively use smartphones, because for such people this is an important way to contact the world. It is believed that when boarding public transport, a blind person experiences the same stress as a passenger airliner pilot during an emergency landing.
In St. Petersburg, there is a “Talking City” system, but the cost of equipment for one city is 1,5 billion rubles, the system confuses oncoming and passing buses, and one subscriber device costs 15 rubles. In addition, the "Talking City" does not work with all vehicles and is not available to non-residents.
The system developed by the team does not require any additional equipment, is 2000 times cheaper than analogues, works with any vehicle in any language, does not require an Internet connection and a database.
The guys not only showed a prototype, but made a video about how it works and the whole audience saw how Ilya set the route, reached the nearest stop to the Lighthouse, and the application recognized first 45, and then the desired 40th route. It looked very simple and only engineers guessed what stack and how many neural networks are behind this application.
For me, this has become the application of the future: simple and reliable in terms of interface, mobile, universal, easily scalable to any country, any language. It was obvious that the guys understood what they were doing and wanted it to work quickly, and not in some vague launch perspective. In a word, good fellows. For me, it was the platinum pitch of the evening.
The second member was announced by the host as the generally recognized leader, so after Mixar I was waiting for a real bomb. However, the presentation itself was saturated with a not very correct message (let's leave it on the author's conscience), but the product is very interesting - the geolocation application for mutual assistance "Help is nearby". 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 receiving systematic assistance. Since the project developer is a marketer, he especially stood out with a competent commercial part of the product, which in the current conditions is very important for the growth of 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 a map of events, analytics, a competitive moment by region. With the help of neural networks and artificial intelligence, the author hopes to create the most secure application (agree, this is very important).
"Help is nearby" and high marks from experts
Quote from the presentation:
Every third resident of the Nizhny Novgorod region needs regular help from others due to the limitations of the city's infrastructure. This is a serious burden on social assistance services: people with disabilities, 300 thousand are single and elderly people, 120 thousand are mothers with children under 4 years old, 200 thousand are people with temporary restrictions.
In this application, I personally was very pleased with the holistic approach, the opportunity to return to the social responsibility of the business, the way to solve individual problems quickly, the emotional component (we are all a bit of a lifeguard). From a developer's point of view, I liked the idea of gamification - this is not the only conceived project with achievements, but here the game and exciting component is most obvious.
The prototype was not demonstrated, the mobile application for iOS and Android was announced as planned in the future.
The next pitch was about a nice and simple RECYCLECODE application that should quickly provide people with information about the packaging of a product by its barcode. A person points the camera, opened in the application, at a 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 phones.
The project seems simple, but in fact it is quite resource-intensive, complex in terms of integrations and geolocation, requires the work of users (who will fill in the directories) and the manufacturers themselves. It is clear that this is not even a story of tomorrow, but a little later, but if I were the mayor, I would pay attention to this project and make the city a pilot in terms of environmental friendliness.
Quote from the presentation:
There are few recyclable materials in Russia, many landfills: 99,6% of waste is recycled in Germany, 93% in France, 52% in Italy, 60% on average in the European Union, and 5-7% in Russia. People don't know which packaging can be recycled, which means the labels on the packaging indicate where the waste collection points are.
Another pitch was devoted to the problem of sewerage. The same story - geolocation, management of sewers, competent distribution of resources, calling vacuum trucks to places where there is no sewerage. 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 the Russian population does not have access to centralized sewerage. In 2017, in every second water sample in the recreation area of Nizhny Novgorod, there were deviations from the norm in terms of microbiological indicators.
After the sewage, the speakers returned to the garbage issues - and one of the winning projects was presented - #AntiGarbage. This is a very complex system based on big data, designed to help manage the processes of garbage collection and transportation, optimize workflow and logistics, and effectively manage the fleet of garbage trucks.
The guys presented an amazing visualization of the prototype, where you can track the routes of full and empty garbage trucks online, 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 verified and competent (the entire detailed architecture of the project was presented in terms of modules and functionality - but I won’t post the slide, I would classify this as classified information). There is not even a question about the benefits - the problem of garbage disposal in large cities is one of the priorities.
The most mind-blowing project for me turned out to be the "Parking 7" pitch by the guys from the team from Nizhny Novgorod on how to beat parking hell. It was a complex mixture of visualization, architectural design and development. And since nature rested on me, the child of two builders, my topographical cretinism howled painfully in time with the realization of the prospects of the project.
In general, I will explain as an engineer - I hope the guys will not be offended. This application is a simulation of parking lots in time in a specific geographic space. Relatively speaking, you park the car at the pharmacy, the 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 place of residence (work) of the driver to his car, and proposes to develop a more logical option. And most importantly, it accumulates data that will allow architects of new residential complexes not to press the buildings window to window, but to correctly plan the territory, taking into account the requirements for parking spaces (including underground levels).
Separately, I would like to note the charismatic leader of the team Kirill Pernatkin - he is such a passionate and burning speaker that you believe in him. Well, professionalism there is powerful, no doubt.
From the “Open City” track, the guys came up with the “Good Policeman” project - a system of interaction with authorities that allows you to quickly and conveniently track citizens' appeals, their nature, georeferencing and other information. This is an excellent example of the interaction between government and society in an open digital environment, where bureaucratic moments can be combined with a human approach. The project somehow reminded me of "Angry Citizen" and something - the section of complaints in the State Services. In any case, such decisions are not redundant.
The last project among the participants of the final pitch session was called "Socialest" from a 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 deeds. The guys presented a prototype of the application, in which it was already possible to see important points: end-to-end gamification, categories of activities (for example, volunteering or education), “player” levels. The application has interesting social goals: developing a state role, stimulating proactive residents, a base of such residents, the formation of a social community and maybe even an exit to the international level.
At the end of the pitches, the jury went to a short meeting. I stood close to them and tried to catch the winners - most of all I wanted Mixar to win, because this is the most important decision for one of the most vulnerable - the visually impaired. The jury included Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Maxim Oreshkin, Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region Gleb Nikitin, Mayor of Nizhny Novgorod Vladimir Panov, Managing Partner of the Philtech Initiative Alena Svetushkova.
And ... ta-yes-yes-yes! Three projects will go to major European Smart Cities, where they will hold meetings with local experts, representatives of municipalities and the IT community that have implemented large digital projects:
- Track Accessible city - Mixar team will go to Lyon.
- Track Wasteless city - team will go to Amsterdam.
- Trek Open city - the team "Parking 7" will go to Barcelona.
Winners!
The participants were also awarded with training courses, gifts from the organizers and partners. As an avid Khabrovite, I was pleased to see Skyeng courses among the incentives (how they are for those who go abroad for meetings) and invitations to conferences from JUG.ru (the company was represented by Andrey Dmitriev and for the award - quite rightly - he chose Mixar, they will take the maximum from the conferences). Both companies have great 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 flawless, which is an incredible achievement for the first event in its class. Personally, I was a little short of water and space, but this is due to the huge flow of participants and just visitors and listeners of the hackathon. A huge plus is broadcasts from 360 cameras on social networks, this expanded the interest in the event even more.
Teams Focused
Leading
The host of the main track, more precisely, 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 theme of technology, apparently, so much a fan that he managed to hide minor technical overlays and delays in parts of the tracks during a philosophical and technical conversation. He knew his way around perfectly, joked and kept a rather scattered, noisy and versatile hall.
Gene and IT philosophy
Mobile app
For the Global City 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 as I might need. You could create your own program, get a notification about the imminent start of the desired track, see your activities in your personal account.
Light and walls
Lighthouse is a building of stunning beauty and grandeur, but inside, frankly, vintage and retro. The organizers made excellent lighting solutions - not cutting, but also interesting, they hung cool posters on the walls. It turned out to be a very warm and cozy loft atmosphere. And I even want brick walls to always stick out like this, there would be an authentic staircase, dark passages and the rest.
The ceiling of the main hall and the light on it
The wall opposite the toilet changed the lighting, 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 applicants - the most daring literally could not be torn off.
Company stands
At the Sberbank booth, one could look and touch a tiny branch of the bank, Rostelecom deployed an interesting interactive touch stand with the latest smart achievements for city life. At Sberbank, it was possible to test the docdoc telemedicine system. The harsh booth of GAZ OJSC talked about intelligent solutions for managing cars and auto traffic. The coolest thing was the SAROVA water stand, where you could grab a bottle, and below, in two rows, kinescope TVs reminded us of the technological gap between the recent past and the real present.
Rostelecom stand
It was the only chance to steal an ATM
Dialogue between authorities and participants
Representatives of the authorities were at the hackathon all three days, talking, joking, attentively treating almost every project presented. It was unexpected and quite inspiring - one could feel the real, genuine interest of the governor and the mayor. At the same time, everyone walked quite calmly, they didn’t push anyone or rub off the security guards, 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, which are close-knit, with an idea, somewhere maybe even with an MVP. Therefore, many are embarrassed to come to hackathons and take part. However, there were teams that gathered on Friday right on the site, and on Sunday they already presented the project 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 quickly implemented. In addition, in 2021 Nizhny Novgorod will be 800 years old - there will be demand. This means that you should not be afraid to create teams and offer ideas. Moreover, participation in hackathons is a career opportunity, investment, and even PR for your company.
Part of the Privet!NN team
Three days flew by as one, the participants were greeted by the signature Nizhny Novgorod sunset, ideas met their new life. How the decisions will be implemented, in what time frame, in what form, I hope, we will find out over time. But, as Gleb Nikitin said, wherever the second Global City Hackathon takes place, “in all regions they will remember that the first one was Nizhny”.
A start.
Nizhny Novgorod sunsets are amazing every day - still the capital of sunsets
Special thanks for the hackathon and greetings to Igor Pozumentov and the portal , where you can find out interesting events from the world of IT in Nizhny Novgorod ().
By the way, if you are planning a business trip to Nizhny Novgorod, choose June 24 - we will host another unique and absolutely free event - the stage of the Paris-Beijing retro rally 🙂
Source: habr.com