The 6th AT&T Junior Hackathon took place on November 28-29 in Brno, bringing together young tech minds from high schools across the Czech Republic to develop innovative ideas to contribute to a better digital future for all of society.
The winner of the technology marathon was the Merkury team from the Zlín Secondary School of Cinema, Multimedia and IT Technologies. During the 24 hours of competition, the team developed and programmed an interactive game that introduces players to the basics of cybersecurity, showing the possible risks of working with a computer and how to defend against online attacks. Their project also received the Best Idea award.
According to Petr Novák, Product Owner at AT&T GNS Czech Republic: “These students are the future of development companies. They do not spend hours on computers “playing games”, but testing the possibilities of technology, discovering and inventing. And that’s exactly what this two-day competition is about. The participants, along with their teachers, were given access to modern technologies and expert mentors, and it’s amazing to see what they can do with this in a minimal amount of time.
He added that this year’s hackathon focused on solving challenges related to artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and improving life inside buildings. A total of 15 high school teams designed their own prototypes in 24 hours, with the aim of improving the quality of life for diverse groups of people.
AT&T organized the Brno Junior Hackathon in cooperation with the non-profit organization JA Czech. The national programming and technical problem-solving competition brought together 67 young IT candidates, who competed in groups of up to five people at the Secondary School of IT, Post and Finance.
Supervised by expert mentors from AT&T, partner companies and institutions, the high school students spent 24 hours, with minimal rest, developing their projects in an atmosphere full of ideas and energy. They also had access to many different technologies, devices and programs.
“The competition is one of the most demanding in terms of intensity, but for all participants it is a great experience and an investment in the future,” said Martin Smrž, director of the educational organization JA Czech . “Whenever we are surprised by the big ideas and specific innovations proposed by young people, they hold enormous potential. This time, the jury made up of IT and business professionals rewarded four teams. The best students won vouchers to purchase electronic devices of their choice worth up to CZK 20,000.”
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Second place and the prize for the best presentation were won by the CloudCrew team from the Orlová Gymnasium and Business Academy. They developed an application to store receipts, invoices and information about household appliances in one place, in order to preserve the environment, monitor warranty and service periods and help extend the lifespan products.
BinaryBandits from the Emil Kolben Industrial Secondary School in Rakovník won third place with a project focused on electronic school timetables – affordable screens based on electronic ink, placed in classrooms and responding to changes in direct from teaching timetables.
Finally, the prize for the best technical solution was awarded to the Koncentrovaná prestiž team from the Secondary Industrial School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics in Ostrava. Their winning project presented a device that detects the movement of people in indoor spaces, for example in a museum: a visitor to an interactive exhibition uses an application on their phone, which accompanies them throughout the exhibition.
