SK
ENDuring the first weekend of December, for the first time after the pandemic, a Hackathon was held on the premises of the University Library of the Technical University in Košice, organized by TEL IT (DT ITSO SK).
Hackathon, also known as Hack Day in the world, represents a combination of creativity, information technology, and competitiveness. The participants had the opportunity to experience all this during this event. 150 young IT enthusiasts in 30 teams invented a total of 32 applications in 24 hours with the help of 20 mentors from TEL IT (DT ITSO SK) and the Technical University of Košice. The hackathon concluded a series of events that TEL IT organized this year within the local developer community. Other beneficial events were Coder Fest and Coder Game, which contribute to a high degree of cooperation with university and high school students, as well as with companies operating in the local market. All of these events support the corporate strategy to attract young potential people to ensure sustainability, continuity, and growth within the business.
The best idea of two young students was rewarded with a prize of EUR 6 000
One of the five topics that the competing teams had the opportunity to address represented 1 of the most technologically challenging problems we face at Deutsche Telekom. One of the distinguished guests at this year's Hackathon, Felix Mohnke, who serves as IT Business Director at Digital Hub ENI (Enterprise Integration), challenged the programmers with the topic of Tardis.
The absolute winners were Teodor Barča and Michal Petričko from the Gymnasium on Alejova Street in Košice, who, just after receiving the prize and the first congratulations, did not hide their excitement and joy: "We are very happy, we still can't believe it. To win the top prize is a great feeling. Even our parents didn't want to believe us at first," the winners said with a smile and added about their recipe for success: "It is important to develop your skills in your spare time, to do different projects. Of course, you have to enjoy such things, first of all, then the results will come." The young talented students worked on the Tardis theme and presented a proposal for a solution within 24 hours. They took home a prize of EUR 6,000 for 1st place. In addition to the prize money, they also gained the attention of a foreign guest, Felix Mohnke, who came to support the event from Germany and offered the budding talents a work placement.
In addition to the experience, the other two teams that came up with the best solutions also received an interesting financial reward.
The organizers are not hiding their enthusiasm for the event
"I think we managed to build on the pre-pandemic period and bring the development community together again, to bring new ideas in a great execution. The winners of the Hackathon, the Puma team - that is Teo and Michal, worked on one of the most technologically difficult problems we face at Deutsche Telekom", said Michal Kováčik (DT ITSO SK), who works as People lead - Software Engineering.
Guests Felix Mohnke and Michael Herzog-Fismer also expressed their enthusiasm for the event.
" Bringing TARDIS to the Hackathon Kosice 2023 was a great pleasure for me. We anonymized and exported metadata of our API gateway Stargate. The task was to find and import the data, visualize it, and then try to find patterns that indicate an incident in the traffic before it occurs. The winning team PUMA was able to give hints about an upcoming incident by using an AI. We are already planning a joint session with the winners and our teams to make Deutsche Telekom’s IT more stable in the future. Thanks to Deutsche Telekom IT Solutions Slovakia for the organization and the great opportunity to present our topic. We are looking forward to the next event." said Felix Mohnke, Business owner IT at Digital Hub ENI.
Michael Herzog-Fismer said: “ Inspiring event! professional made! great mixture of topics - from Tardis to local Startups! good opportunity to network with locals and sponsors. We showed ourselves as a hip company to the outside. What made me think: we have seen what is achievable in 24 hours... we should use the format more often (currently planning a hackathon in Germany) and improve our developer's experience in a way of making software development, testing, and operations easier, faster and more fun.”
The benefit of this year's event was not only to help young talents to become visible but also to bring technological solutions for organizations such as Košice IT Valley or Project Košice 2.0. Participation in this competition is a unique opportunity for the applicants to work on digital projects that can support and promote the IT sector in the east of Slovakia.
The Hackathon was supported by the event partners - Deutsche Telekom IT Solutions Slovakia, Nordics, UIA, Košice IT Valley, and Project Košice 2.0.
Watch a short video about what the 8th Hackathon looked like.