I want to share my impressions of the All-Russian competition . After it, I had very good impressions in general (without any irony), it was my first hackathon in my life and I think it will be the last one. It was interesting for me to try what it is - I tried it - not mine. But first things first.
Around the end of April 2019, I saw an advertisement for the Digital Breakthrough programmer competition. The structure of the competition is a quarter-final, this is a correspondence online testing, a semi-final, this is a face-to-face regional stage in the hackathon format for 36 hours, then a face-to-face final 48 hour hackathon. The first stage is online testing. There were 50 different topics, you can find it on the project website.
There were 20 minutes for each topic, you can’t stop time and go through it again. It was possible to choose any topic and pass any number of tests, depending on the quality of the tests passed and on their number it depended whether you would get into the semi-finals or not. I started taking tests (didn't prepare, I was skeptical). I scored about the same sample there (13 out of 20,9 out of 20, 11 out of 20, etc.). Several questions were clearly taken from Wikipedia, roughly speaking, directly in the answer options there were designations of variables from formulas (phi, cue, omega), this was very amusing. Some of the questions were clearly put together by someone who understands the field. And already at this stage, the first embarrassment happened, two of my tests simply closed and 0 out of 20 was displayed there. I wrote to support, I received a quick answer that the application was under consideration. After another 4 days, they wrote that the “Administration” allows me to pass these tests again. I tried to do this, but nothing changed, and I still have 0 out of 20. I wrote to the support again, they told me to wait, a week later the test results came, where I was advised by information resources that could help me improve my skills. And a month later, the answer came that according to my application there was a check and no errors were detected for a month, they were detected, they were not detected. I participated from the Moscow region and the semi-final was supposed to take place on July 27th. What was my surprise when on July 16 they sent me messages that I was still invited to the internal stage.
Correspondence
The semi-final began with the fact that after July 16, it was necessary to use the online service of the developers of the "digital breakthrough" contest to assemble your own team or join an existing one, the formation was only from those who passed online testing and everyone saw the points that you had for online tests. The team must consist strictly of 3 to 5 people. I didn’t have any acquaintances who passed the test and I started trying to “organize into a team” through all channels, I decided that I would try to join someone. The organizers made an online chat, especially for the Moscow region in VK, where I found the captain of the DevLeaders team, who was in charge of the front (everyone came up with the name of the team as they wanted), at that time there were 2 people in it, directly the cap and the designer . I went to the back-end role. Then a person with experience as a mobile developer joined us, but in fact it was a full-stack. We first saw each other at the semi-finals in Moscow. We got into the track of public services, the task was to make a prototype analog of UiPath or BluePrism in 36 hours. The funny thing is we did it.
Implementation DescriptionWe made a web application, the url was given as input, then this Url was displayed inside our form, and then we could click the script, getting the selectors for each of the elements. On the server, using Selenium, an input url was opened in which the target script was already executing, and screenshots of the browser window were sent to the client as a report on the running process.
Screenshots
With this decision in our category, we took 1st place and made it to the final. Foreign analogues are very expensive (from about 2 million per year, for a limited number of bots). Russian distributors of an IT company buy such solutions for large businesses, set up turnkey robotics and sell the solution even more expensive, so saving on tools is a good idea. After the end of the hackathon, an expert from our track approached me, he represented the Department of Information Technology of the city of Moscow. In fact, he (and in his person DIT) were task managers. He asked if I could scale this project and do the same for the desktop and if I was interested in developing this direction. I answered in the affirmative, after which he invited me directly to DIT to describe the idea in front of his boss. At a face-to-face meeting, they asked me how many people are needed for the pilot version and when we can do it, like the Russian counterparts.
Russian analogues(they are still very raw and I understand that big business is not interested in them, I don’t know for sure, known to me , which, according to a cursory review, has the main parsing module right out of the box on the github from this resource and more I liked )
I answered that in 4 people, we will make a fully alpha version like that of the same electronics in 4 months, but we will need a real business case on which we could fully pilot it. They told me ok, we will contact you, no one else got in touch with me and they didn’t even answer my questions in the telegram. A very interesting interaction experience.
The semi-final hackathon ended on July 29, while the final was supposed to start in Kazan only on September 27-29. In parallel with this, we were invited to the Sochi Digital Valley, as I understand it, just to visit. The trip left two impressions, but it’s really cool that you are paid for tickets and accommodation (the trip consisted of one day), but in the main direction, namely, to discuss the layout of our IT product or any other proposals, it’s very scarce. almost nothing can be said. We asked if we could provide a working layout by mid-October 2019 - the answer was again in the affirmative, while no one contacted us, at the time of writing the article is October 2nd.
Then the epic with the finale began, I will not criticize the organization here, for sure many people will describe it in more detail, I want to focus on something else. Let me just say that our entire team was offered plane tickets to Kazan and back. Thanks organizers! Housing for the finals, each rented himself. I can only say that the nearest hotel from the venue of the final is 20 km away!
The day before the departure, the tracks from the tasks were published (they were broadcast from the stage in the public domain, so I hope I'm not violating any rights)
Task list1.
Ministry of Digital Development, Telecommunications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation (Minkomsvyaz of Russia)
Develop a software prototype for automatic verification of program code duplication in public procurement
2.
Federal Tax Service (FTS of Russia)
Develop software for a single certification center that will reduce the number of fraudulent activities associated with the use of electronic signatures
3.
Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat)
Offer online products to encourage citizens to actively participate in the 2020 Census and visualize the results of the Census at the end of the Census
(big data visualization)
4.
Central bank
Russian Federation
(Bank of Russia)
Create a mobile application that allows collecting the opinions of the external audience on the initiatives of the Bank of Russia for the purpose of public discussion, ensure the processing of the results of such discussion
5.
Ministry of Informatization and Communications of the Republic of Tatarstan
Develop a prototype of a platform that will allow analytics to convert existing public services into electronic form, without the involvement of developers
6.
Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation (Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia)
Develop an AR / VR solution for quality control of the implementation of special technological processes at industrial enterprises
7.
State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom (State Corporation Rosatom)
Develop a platform that allows you to create a map of the production facilities of the enterprise, lay out optimal logistics routes on it, track the movement of parts
8.
Public Joint Stock Company Gazprom Neft
(PJSC Gazprom Neft)
Develop a data analysis service for flaw detection of transport pipelines
9.
Fund for Support and Development of Information Technologies
and digitalization of the economy "Digital Valley Sochi"
(Sochi Digital Valley Foundation)
Propose a prototype of a scalable mobile application with an implemented solution for validating electronic documents offline
10.
The Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation
(Ministry of Transport of Russia)
Develop a mobile application (and an application for the central server) that will allow you to transfer data on the level of availability of the mobile network and, based on them, draw up an up-to-date network coverage map
11.
Joint Stock Company Federal Passenger Company (JSC FPC)
Develop a prototype of a mobile application that allows a passenger to order food delivery from restaurants located in cities along the train route
12.
Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation (Ministry of Health of Russia)
Create a prototype system for monitoring the general condition of a person working at a computer using pattern recognition and modeling human behavior
13.
Accounts Chamber
Russian Federation
Develop software that allows statistical analysis and visualization of the results of creating a nationwide network of perinatal centers
14.
Autonomous non-profit organization "Russia is a country of opportunities"
(ANO "Russia - a country of opportunities",
ANO "RSV")
Develop a software prototype to track the employment of university graduates, analyze and predict the demand for certain professions
15.
Public Joint Stock Company "Mobile Telesystems"
(PJSC MTS)
Offer a prototype platform for the retraining of specialists who are released in companies due to the digitalization of business processes
16.
Ministry of Construction
and housing and communal services of the Russian Federation
(Ministry of Construction of Russia)
Develop software for conducting an inventory of heat and water supply systems, forming, based on the results of monitoring, a regional geographic information system of engineering infrastructure facilities
17.
Public Joint Stock Company "MegaFon"
(PJSC MegaFon)
Create a universal web application for enterprises in the field of housing and communal services, which allows you to recognize the meaning of the appeal, distribute the appeals among responsible employees and track their implementation
18.
Public Joint Stock Company Rostelecom
(PJSC Rostelecom)
Create a prototype information and service monitoring system for waste collection and processing points
19.
Association of Volunteer Centers (AVC)
Propose a prototype of a web service to stimulate social and civic engagement through competitive and micro-grant mechanisms
20.
Limited Liability Company "MEIL.RU GROUP"
(LLC "Mail.ru Group")
Create a prototype service for organizing volunteer projects on a social network platform
There were about 600 teams in total, and each team could choose its own task. It was the largest hackathon on the planet and entered the Guinness Book of Records. We chose track 17 from Megafon. There were 29 teams in our track. It was necessary to make a mobile client for the tenant, give him the opportunity to form an application to the Management Company, then make a web office on the side of the management company, where he could monitor business processes. According to the idea of the task, the application should immediately fall on the performer, by classifying it using a neural network. We provided such a mechanism, as most of the teams from our track are sure. Now I want to dwell on the expert advice, experts from the megaphone walked importantly past our tables and asked questions like “How are you doing”? If they wanted to show them the details of the implementation or the principles of building a neural network, they denied it. In general, there was an opinion that out of all the experts of our track, and there were under 15 of them, only One, ONE man, who at least approximately understood what was happening. And only one person even tried to look at the code! As a result, more than half of the teams should have been eliminated in pre-defense. And these people appreciated us! Pre-protection lasted 3 minutes! And 2 more minutes of expert questions! Again, I will not say that everything worked for us, but we were sued. But the evaluation criterion was generally incomprehensible and opaque, plus during the pre-defense, the experts did not try to go through the business process of what we had prepared, they just checked if you make an application via the phone, it appears in the admin panel of the Criminal Code and checked how the neuron works. All. It seems to me that such an approach is very unfair, after you code for 30+ hours without sleep, and people look at what you have done (I can be wrong, but this is the opinion that has developed) who do not understand the implementation processes and work out the details! 11 best teams went to the defense, we went from 11th place, we got 4 out of 10 for the work of the prototype! Without asking a single question that we would not answer or pointing out what did not work for us. We did not go to the appeal only because these data were allegedly not taken into account during the defense, but this turned out not to be the case. The teams performed at the defense in turn from 1st place to the last, that is, since we were the last to defend, the jury knew that we were the worst in the opinion of the experts! On defense, many teams explicitly said that they came with a ready-made solution! We unfortunately washed down everything in these 48 hours. We didn't take 1st place. The guys from Krasnoyarsk won, I saw their work - I liked it. I think they deserve it!
I am grateful to my team, which is the product of this competition, we showed that, if desired, even people who do not know each other can quickly and efficiently make IT products. Therefore, in spite of everything, I had a positive impression of this competition. Thanks to the government for creating such a product as this contest.
As a result, I would like to say that the contradictions that high-ranking officials from the stands are very frightening. Specifically, at the opening ceremony, Kiriyenko said that he would see to it that all decisions reached the regions. We were all really obliged to hand over all the code, on flash drives, but when I tried to explain to the moderator that they would need at least a day to install the necessary frameworks (not to mention that they would need a specialist who CAN do this) to collect these sources. We were told that this is how it should be, and it became clear to me that, except for those who took first places, most of the code would settle like a dead weight. The same is true at the regional stage. A task is set - you solve it, no one needs the result. I would like to note that most of the people at this competition really did cool things and it’s simply amazing how rich our country is in terms of IT specialists, only the chain Government-Funds-Responsible for the result-Organizers-Participants has weak links that complicate the digital breakthrough Russia!
Source: habr.com