The Junta de Castilla y León has just launched a new edition of its open data competition. In doing so, it seeks to recognise the implementation of projects using datasets from its Open Data Portal. The call for applications will be open until the end of September, so you can take advantage of the remaining weeks of summer to submit your application.

What does the competition consist of?

The objective of the 8th Open Data Competition is to recognise the implementation of projects using open data in four categories:

• Ideas" category: participants will have to describe an idea to create studies, services, websites or applications for mobile devices.
• Products and Services" category: studies, services, websites or applications for mobile devices, which must be accessible to all citizens via the web through a URL, will be awarded.
• Didactic Resource" category: consists of the creation of new and innovative open didactic resources to support classroom teaching. These resources must be published under Creative Commons licences.
• Category "Data Journalism": Journalistic pieces published or updated (in a relevant way) in both written and audiovisual media are sought.

All categories have one thing in common: the project must use at least one dataset from the Junta de Castilla y León's Open Data portal. These datasets can be combined, if the authors so wish, with other data sources, private or public, from any level of administration.

Who can participate?

The competition is open to any natural or legal person who has carried out a project and meets the requirements of each category. Neither public administrations nor those persons who have collaborated directly or indirectly in the preparation of the regulatory bases and the call for applications may participate.

You can participate as an individual or in a group. In addition, the same person may submit more than one application for the same or different categories. The same project can also be submitted in several categories, although it can only be awarded in one category.

What do the prizes consist of?

A jury will evaluate the proposals received on the basis of a series of requirements, including their usefulness, economic value, originality, quality, etc. Once all the projects have been evaluated, a number of winners will be announced, who will receive a diploma, open data consultancy and the following prize money :

1. Category Ideas.
   • First prize €1,500.
   • Second prize 500€.
2. Category Products and services. In this case, a special award for students has also been created, aimed at people enrolled in the 2023/2024 and 2024/2025 academic years, both in university and non-university education, provided that it is official.
   • First prize €2,500.
   • Second prize: €1,500.
   • Third prize: €500.
   • Student Prize: €1,500.
3. Category Educational resource.
   • First prize: €1,500.
4. Category Data Journalism.
   • First prize: €1,500.
   • Second prize : €1,000.

In addition, the winning entries will be disseminated and promoted through the Open Data Portal of Castilla y León and other media of the Administration.

What are the deadlines?

The deadline for receiving applications opened on 23 July 2024, one day after the publication of the rules in the Official Gazette of Castilla y León.  Participants will have until 23 September 2024 to submit their applications.

How can I participate?

Applications can be submitted in person or electronically.

• In person: at the General Registry of the Regional Ministry of the Presidency , the Registry Assistance Offices of the Regional Government of Castilla y León or at any of the places established in article 16.4 of Law 39/2015.

• Electronic: through the electronic office.

Applications should include information on:

• Author(s) of the project.
• Project title.
• Category or categories for which you are applying.
• Project report, with a maximum length of 1,000 words.

You have all the detailed information at the website, where the competition rules are included.

With this new edition, the Castilla y León Data Portal reaffirms its commitment not only to the publication of open data, but also to the promotion of its reuse. Such actions are a showcase to promote examples of the use of open data in different fields. You can see last year's winning projects in this article.

Come and take part!

The Island Council of Tenerife announces two competitions to to recognise projects that use data from the open data portal datos.tenerife.es.

The 'I Open Data Competition: Reuse Ideaswill reward ideas that use at least one open dataset from the portal. These projects may consist of studies, services, educational resources or applications. It should be noted that this is a first Ideas competition for which it will not be necessary to develop the project or application, it is only necessary to explain the idea. The format shall be digital, with a minimum of 5,000 characters. Among the requirements established is that they must explain the problem they are solving, how it is solved, what data sets they use, what the target audience of their proposal would be and on what platform it would be developed (web, mobile...), among others. 

On the other hand, following this first competition, and based on the same objectives, the Cabildo will hold a second edition, "II Concurso Datos Abiertos Cabildo de Tenerife: App development". This will be a second phase of this open data reuse process, in which the development of an APP (an application) that reuses open data will be rewarded.   

Below, we review the key points of the call for the 1st Open Data Competition: Reuse Ideas.

What does this involve?

The Cabildo de Tenerife wants to recognise the presentation of ideas and highlight proposals that reflect possible study projects, services, educational resources, websites or applications for mobile devices that use datasets from the Open Data portal of the Cabildo de Tenerife and other bodies. These projects must show the economic and social benefit of open data.

Who can participate?

 Both natural and legal personsmay participate, with the exception of public administrations, entities dependent on them and those natural or legal persons who have participated directly or indirectly in the call for proposals and the development of the portal. Participants in the competition must be up to date with their tax obligations. The same person, whether natural or legal, may submit as many applications as they wish, either individually or jointly.

What is the prize?

The Cabildo has announced that it will award prizes totalling 6,000 euros, divided into a first prize of 3,000 euros, a second prize of 2,000 euros and a third prize of 1,000 euros. The prizes will be announced through the usual channels of the Cabildo de Tenerife and on the portal datos.tenerife.es. 

How can you take part?

Proposals may be submitted electronically or in person. In both cases, the participant must provide the following documentation:

• Request
• Proposal in digital format
• National Identity Number
• Certificate of being up to date in the fulfilment of obligations with the State Tax Administration
• Certificate of being up to date in the fulfilment of obligations with the Canary Islands Tax Authorities
• Certificate of being in good standing with the Cabildo of Tenerife
• Certificate of being up to date with Social Security obligations

 Online participation will be done through the electronic site, available here: https://sede.tenerife.es/es/personal/#!/presentacion/iniciar?procedimientoId=3048441

On the other hand, for face-to-face processing in person the form must be filled in, printed out and handed in at any citizens' service centre any citizen service centre. 

What is the application deadline?

The Cabildo of Tenerife has set a deadline of three months from the publication of the rules on 23 July, so that proposals can be submitted until 23 October 2024.

Assessment criteria

The assessment criteria include the viability of the proposed idea, the quality of the presentation, its public utility and social value, its originality, creativity and innovative character, and its potential to generate business and obtain economic profitability, as well as the possibility of generating employment.

With this competition, the Cabildo de Tenerife pursues the dual objective of disseminating open data and promoting its reuse.

You can find more information at the website of the call for proposals.

EXTENDED: You can submit your project until September 20th!

The deadline to participate in the II edition of the Datathon UniversiData is now open. This competition recognises the value of projects that reuse open university data published on the portal UniversiDATA,a public-private initiative that was born at the end of 2020. Its aim was, and is, to promote open data in the Spanish higher education sector in a harmonised way.

UniversiDATA is currently made up of the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, the Universidad de Valladolid and the Universidad de Huelva, in collaboration with the company DIMETRICAL, The Analytics Lab, S.L.

What is the UniversiDATA Datathon about?

As previously indicated, participants must submit an open data processing project using one or more of the datasets published in UniversiDATA. These data may be combined with other data sources, but always bearing in mind that their use should not be secondary or ancillary.

There are no limitations on the nature of the project, the technologies involved or the formats of presentatiing the results. You can compete with a mobile app, a web application, a data analysis in Jupyter or R-Markdown, etc.  Works already submitted to other competitions, as well as internships, master's or bachelor's degree theses or research articles  are also valid .

For inspiration, you can visit the "UniversiDATA-Lab" where examples of applications and data analysis are shown. You can also check out the winning projects of the first edition.

How does the competition unfold?

The competition is divided into two phases:

1. Knockout stage

Those interested in participating can submit their candidature from 6 March until September 20, using this form. In addition to the personal data, the following information must be provided in the application:

• Members of the project
• Project title
• Problem to be solved
• Proposed solution
• Identification of addressees
• Usefulness of the project
• Data sets to be used

All the projects submitted will be evaluated by a jury. The jury will select 10 finalists, who will go on to the final phase. The list of selected projects will be made public on September 27, 2024.

2. Final Phase

Once selected, the finalists will start preparing their projects for the presentation to the jury, which will take place during an online event on December 16. The projects will be presented by videoconference.

The winners will be announced on December 23.

Who can participate?

The competition is open to any natural person with tax residence in the European Union, whether they are students, working professionals or amateurs.

You can participate as a group or as an individual.

what are the prizes?

This year, the financial endowment has been increased to a total of €9,000, divided as follows:

• First prize: € 4,000
• Second prize: € 3,000
• Third prize: € 1,500

In addition to these general prizes, the aim is also to recognise the best university student project that has been a finalist but has not won a prize. A special prize of €500 has been created for this purpose.

In case of group participation, the prize will be divided among all members of the group.

Do you have any queries?

Before participating, it is necessary to download and read the specific rules of the competition. If you have any questions, you can contact the organisers through this form. You will also be informed of any new developments on the the UniversiDATA Twitter profile.

In addition, throughout the competition, a direct communication channel will be established with the participants for any questions that may arise, including those concerning the datasets to be used.

The II Datathon UniversiDATA arises as a result of the success achieved in its first edition. it is a very positive experience that offers participants, once again this year, the opportunity not only to win financial recognition, but also to gain visibility by showing their talent when it comes to processing data that can provide answers to various questions of social and economic interest.

The awards ceremony for the seventh edition of the Castilla y León open data competition was held on Monday 12 February seventh edition of the Castilla y León open data competition, which aims to recognise and value the good use of open dataas well as promoting and encouraging its use and exploitation.

The competition, which has been running since 2016, aims to to raise interest in open data and the and the multiple economic possibilities associated with it. In this way, the initiative, organised by the Regional Ministry of the Presidency of the Junta de Castilla y Leónthe initiative, organised by the Regional Ministry of the Presidency of Castile and Leon, recognises projects that generate ideas, studies, services, websites or mobile applications. As has been the case in previous editions, the common denominator of the entries in this competition is the use of datasets from the Open Data Portal of the Junta de Castilla y León.

Thirty-two entries were submitted in this call, of which eight were awarded in one of the four categories eight of them have been awarded in one of the four categories: Ideas, Products and Services, Didactic Resource and Data Journalism.

Eight award-winning projects in this edition of the competition

The winners in the different categories, chosen from the 32 entries submitted, were:

Category Ideas:

• First prize of 1500 €: Health supply in Castilla y León / Dashboard - Author: Almudena María Moreno Maderuelo.
  
  • Scorecard related to public health in Castilla y León, based on open data.
• Second prize of 500 €: "Geographical names and their oral transmission" - Author: Guillermo Herrero Gacimartín.
  
  • An idea to take advantage of open data to promote the conservation and dissemination of the wealth of geographical names and histories of the peoples of our autonomous community.

Category Products and Services:

• First prize of 2500 €: EnergyCyl. Boosting energy efficiency through energy analysis in Castilla y León  - Author: David Aparicio Sanz.
  
  • Web application that compiles, analyses and provides detailed information on the energy sector in the autonomous community of Castilla y León.
• Second prize 1500 €: Active Territories Project.Webmapping for the characterisation and sustainable promotion of innovative initiatives in the rural environment of Castilla y León - Authors: Víctor Pérez Eguíluz, María A. Castrillo Romón, Elvira Khairulina, José Luis Lalana Soto and Enrique Rodrigo González.
  
  • Website of the "Territorios Activos" project to study innovation in the context of rural environments in the autonomous community of Castilla y León.
• Third prize 500 €: Anomalous pattern monitoring for operational optimisation of logistics infrastructures - Author: Unai Beristain.
  
  • Open data and IoT solution for logistics management and early detection of anomalous patterns in logistics infrastructures. 3D web map based on open data.
• Student prizes of €1500: Offers for young people in Castilla y León - Authors: Ismael Martín Moakil, Alberto Herrero Jiménez, Oscar Antona Gutierrez, Daniel Herranz Herranz, Alberto Aguilar García, Joel Garrido Hernández, Rafael Martín Domínguez and Alonso Gallego. IES Alonso de Madrigal (Ávila).
  
  • App for Android that allows you to find out about discounts and promotions for young people with the Carnet Joven de Castilla y León (Youth Card of Castilla y León)

Didactic Resource Category:

• First prize: 1500 €: CHEST: an application to support the creation and reuse of ubiquitous educational experiences related to cultural heritage around the world - Authors: Pablo García Zarza, Guillermo Vega Gorgojo, Miguel L. Bote Lorenzo, Juan I. Asensio Pérez, Eduardo Gómez Sánchez and Yannis Dimitriadis.
  
  • Application to support teachers in the design and implementation of ubiquitous learning when teaching subjects related to cultural heritage.

Data Journalism Category:

• First prize of 1500 €: what is life like without a bar? How the villages manage to play the game - Authors: Ana Isabel Ruíz Espinar, Marta Ley and Guillermo Cid.
  
  • Journalistic article that analyses how the existence of hotel and catering establishments affects the municipalities of Castilla y León.

The Junta de Castilla y León has published a list of all the projects that entered the competition, available on its website: https://datosabiertos.jcyl.es/web/es/concurso-datos-abiertos/proyectos-presentados.html

During the awards ceremony, the Minister of the Presidency of the Junta de Castilla y León, Luis Miguel González Gago, insisted on the premise of continuing to improve the presentation and accessibility of open data accessibility of open data. In this sense, the aim is to improve the visualisation of the data presented by all the departments of the Junta de Castilla y León, which in a homogeneous and coordinated way will use the same presentation schemes so that they can be easily located, understood and interpreted easily located, understood and interpreted by citizens by citizens. A commitment to interoperability.

On August 1, the Junta de Castilla y León opened the deadline to receive new proposals in the field of open data. Thus, with the aim of "recognizing the realization of projects that provide any type of idea, study, service, website or applications for mobile devices, and that use datasets from the Open Data Portal of the Junta de Castilla y León", they have launched a new edition of their open data contest.

The initiative, which has been running since 2016, aims to awaken interest in open data and the multiple economic possibilities associated with it. In this way, it manages to encourage the production of services and projects linked to the reuse of public information and the data economy of Castilla y León.

The period for submitting projects in the different categories set out in the rules (Ideas, Products and Services, Educational Resource and Data Journalism) will be open for two months, extending until October 2. The procedure for submitting applications follows the same dynamics as in previous years: participants can choose to apply in person or electronically. The latter will be carried out through the Electronic Headquarters of Castilla y León and can be processed by both individuals and legal entities.

Promoting open data through four differentiated categories

As in previous editions, the projects and associated prizes are divided into four different categories:

Teaching Resource: Creation of open teaching resources (published under Creative Commons licenses), new and innovative, that use datasets from the Junta de Castilla y León's Open Data portal and that serve as support for classroom teaching. The 6th edition of the contest awarded the GeoChef project in this category. Its author received €1,500 in prize money.

Products and Services: Projects that provide studies, services, websites or applications for mobile devices using datasets from the Junta de Castilla y León's Open Data portal. In the 2022 edition, the first prize in this category went to 'Oferta de Formación profesional de Castilla y León, una alternativa atractiva y accesible con herramientas no-cod'. Its author won €2,500.

Data Journalism: This category includes journalistic pieces published or updated (in a relevant way) in any medium (written or audiovisual), using datasets from the Open Data portal of the Junta de Castilla y León. In the previous edition, Asociación Maldita took the first place thanks to the informative service, 'Elections 13-F in Castilla y León: there will be 186 polling stations less than in the autonomic elections of 2019'.

Ideas: This includes those projects that describe an idea that can be used to create studies, services, websites or applications for mobile devices. The main requirement they must meet is to use datasets from the Junta de Castilla y León's Open Data portal. Last year the project 'Elige tu Universidad (Castilla y León)' was awarded the first prize of €1,500.

Regarding the awards of this seventh edition, the prizes have an economic endowment of 12,000 €, which is distributed according to the awarded category and the position achieved.

Ideas Category

• First prize 1,500 €.
• Second prize 500 €.

Products and services category

• First prize 2.500 € 
• Second prize 1.500 €.
• Third prize 500 €.
• Students prize: 1.500 €.

Educational resource category

• First prize 1.500 €.

Data Journalism Category

• First prize 1.500 € 
• Second prize 1.000 € 

As in previous editions of the competition, the final verdict will be issued by a jury made up of members with proven experience in the field of open data, information analysis or the digital economy. The jury's decisions will be made by majority vote and, in the event of a tie, the final decision will rest with the president.

Once the result is known, the winners will have a period of five working days to accept the award. If the prize is not accepted, it will be understood that the prize has been waived. If you want to consult in detail the conditions and legal bases of the contest you can access them through this link.

On 21 February, the winners of the 6th edition of the Castilla y León Open Data Competition were presented with their prizes. This competition, organised by the Regional Ministry of the Presidency of the Regional Government of Castilla y León, recognises projects that provide ideas, studies, services, websites or mobile applications, using datasets from its Open Data Portal.

The event was attended, among others, by Jesús Julio Carnero García, Minister of the Presidency, and Rocío Lucas Navas, Minister of Education of the Junta de Castilla y León.

In his speech, the Minister Jesús Julio Carnero García emphasised that the Regional Government is going to launch the Data Government project, with which they intend to combine Transparency and Open Data, in order to improve the services offered to citizens.

In addition, the Data Government project has an approved allocation of almost 2.5 million euros from the Next Generation Funds, which includes two lines of work: both the design and implementation of the Data Government model, as well as the training for public employees.

This is an Open Government action which, as the Councillor himself added, "is closely related to transparency, as we intend to make Open Data freely available to everyone, without copyright restrictions, patents or other control or registration mechanisms".

Nine prize-winners in the 6th edition of the Castilla y León Open Data Competition

It is precisely in this context that initiatives such as the 6th edition of the Castilla y León Open Data Competition stand out. In its sixth edition, it has received a total of 26 proposals from León, Palencia, Salamanca, Zamora, Madrid and Barcelona.

In this way, the 12,000 euros distributed in the four categories defined in the rules have been distributed among nine of the above-mentioned proposals. This is how the awards were distributed by category:

Products and Services Category: aimed at recognising projects that provide studies, services, websites or applications for mobile devices and that are accessible to all citizens via the web through a URL.

• First prize: 'Oferta de Formación profesional de Castilla y León. An attractive and accessible alternative with no-cod tools'". Author: Laura Folgado Galache (Zamora). 2,500 euros.
• Second prize: 'Enjoycyl: collection and exploitation of assistance and evaluation of cultural activities'. Author: José María Tristán Martín (Palencia). 1,500 euros.
• Third prize: 'Aplicación del problema de la p-mediana a la Atención Primaria en Castilla y León'.  Authors: Carlos Montero and Ernesto Ramos (Salamanca) 500 euros.
• Student prize: 'Play4CyL'. Authors: Carlos Montero and Daniel Heras (Salamanca) 1,500 euros.

Ideas category: seeks to reward projects that describe an idea for developing studies, services, websites or applications for mobile devices.

• First prize: 'Elige tu Universidad (Castilla y León)'. Authors: Maite Ugalde Enríquez and Miguel Balbi Klosinski (Barcelona) 1,500 euros.
• Second prize: 'Bots to interact with open data - Conversational interfaces to facilitate access to public data (BODI)'. Authors: Marcos Gómez Vázquez and Jordi Cabot Sagrera (Barcelona) 500 euros

Data Journalism Category: awards journalistic pieces published or updated (in a relevant way) in any medium (written or audiovisual).

• First prize: '13-F elections in Castilla y León: there will be 186 fewer polling stations than in the 2019 regional elections'. Authors: Asociación Maldita contra la desinformación (Madrid) 1,500 euros.
• Second prize: 'More than 2,500 mayors received nothing from their city council in 2020 and another 1,000 have not reported their salary'. Authors: Asociación Maldita contra la desinformación (Madrid). 1,000 euros.

Didactic Resource Category: recognises the creation of new and innovative open didactic resources (published under Creative Commons licences) that support classroom teaching.

In short, and as the Regional Ministry of the Presidency itself points out, with this type of initiative and the Open Data Portal, two basic principles are fulfilled: firstly, that of transparency, by making available to society as a whole data generated by the Community Administration in the development of its functions, in open formats and with a free licence for its use; and secondly, that of collaboration, allowing the development of shared initiatives that contribute to social and economic improvements through joint work between citizens and public administrations.

Aragón Open Data is 10 years old and to celebrate it they have launched a datathon entitled "The future of data". The event will take place on 25 November.

What is the datathon about?

The aim of the meeting, organised together with Fractal Strategy, is for citizens to experiment and generate new ideas based on open data that add value to society.

Aragon open Data will propose six challenges. Participants will have to choose one of the challenges or propose another of their choice. Throughout the day they will have to work in teams to create a new service that responds to the selected challenge, using a series of outstanding open datasets available in Aragon Open Data.

At the end of the day, a winning solution will be chosen based on three criteria: the novelty of the proposal, idea or service, its impact on society and the quality of the presentation where the two previous points are defended. Each member of the winning team will receive a voucher worth 50 euros to be exchanged in commercial surfaces in Aragon.

Los retos disponibles son los siguientes:

The following challenges are available:

• Connect with nature. This challenge will include solutions that map resources and points of interest for learning, doing sport or rural tourism, working from less populated places, enjoying leisure time or sharing experiences while enjoying nature.
• More lively neighbourhoods. In this case, solutions are sought that focus on young people and families of the future, addressing issues related to accessible housing, public and sustainable transport, local commerce, etc.
• Employment opportunities. This challenge is aimed at generating proposals that help people to find new employment opportunities in Aragon, through ideas for new industrial products, business initiatives or the mapping of commercial activity, among others.
• University life. With the aim of helping students to make decisions, solutions aimed at planning efforts, making professional contacts, discovering new fields of study and research, etc., will be valued.
• Conocer Aragón. Este reto se enfoca en destacar la oferta de ocio, hostelería y alojamientos, el patrimonio, la agenda cultural o las propuestas de turismo de la región con el fin de darla a conocer a locales y visitantes.
• Getting to know Aragon. This challenge focuses on highlighting the region's leisure, hospitality and accommodation offer, heritage, cultural agenda and tourism proposals in order to make Aragon known to locals and visitors.
• Renewable energies. The last challenge focuses on solutions to advance the sustainable use of energy and the development of new sources of energy resources.

Who can participate?

The event is open to both students and professionals from various fields, including communication, documentation, engineering, design, humanities, social sciences and law.

Participants will work in multidisciplinary teams, which will be formed on the day of the competition. If a participant comes with his or her team already formed, he or she can indicate it in the registration email.

Where does it take place?

The event is face-to-face. It will be held at the headquarters of the Centro de Artesanía de Aragón // Centro Aragonés de Diseño Industrial (CADI), in the building of the Old Municipal Slaughterhouse of Zaragoza, entrance on Calle del Monasterio de Samos, 42 (Zaragoza), on 25 November 2022, from 10:00 to 19:00.

Attendees should bring their own computer.

Food and drink will be provided by the organisers.

How can I register?

Registration is free and will be open until 23 November 2022 at 14h. To do so, please send an email to opendata@aragon.es with your name, age, profession / field of study and the subject "Registration for The Future of Data". If you already know which challenge you want to focus on, it is recommended that you also include it in the email.

These types of competitions are an excellent opportunity to put your knowledge into practice, learn from those with more experience and make new contacts. For these reasons, an increasing number of companies are using hackathons as a mechanism to locate and attract talent.

More information about the datathon on the Aragon Open Data website.

On 20 October, the EU's open data competition came to an end after several months of competition. The final of this sixth edition of the EU Datathon was held in Brussels in the framework of the European Year of Youth and was streamed worldwide.

It is a competition that gives open data enthusiasts and application developers from around the world the opportunity to demonstrate the potential of open data, while their innovative ideas gain international visibility and compete for a portion of the total prize money of €200,000.

The finalist teams were pre-selected from a total of 156 initial submissions. They came from 38 different countries, the largest participation in the history of the competition, to compete in four different categories related to the challenges facing Europe today.

Before the final, the selected participants had the opportunity to present in video format each of the proposals they have been developing based on the open data from the European catalogues.

Here is a breakdown of the winning teams in each challenge, the content of the proposal and the amount of the prize.

Winners of the “European Green Deal” Challenge

The European Green Deal is the blueprint for a modern, sustainable and competitive European economy. Participants who took up the challenge had to develop applications or services aimed at creating a green Europe, capable of driving resource efficiency.

1st prize: CROZ RenEUwable (Croatia)

The application developed by this Croatian team, "renEUwable", combines the analysis of environmental, social and economic data to provide specific and personal recommendations on sustainable energy use.

• Prize: €25,000

2nd prize: MyBioEUBuddy (France, Montenegro)

This project was created to help farm workers and local governments find regions that grow organic produce and can serve as an example to build a more sustainable agricultural network.

• Prize: €15,000

3rd prize: Green Land Dashboard for Cities (Italy)

The bronze in this category went to an Italian project that aims to analyse and visualise the evolution of green spaces in order to help cities, regional governments and non-governmental organisations to make them more liveable and sustainable.

• Prize: €7,000

"Winners of the “Transparency in Public Procurement” Challenge

Transparency in public procurement helps to track how money is spent, combat fraud and analyse economic and market trends. Participants who chose this challenge had to explore the information available to develop an application to improve transparency.

1st prize: Free Software Foundation Europe e.V (Germany)

This team of developers aims to make the links between the private sector, public administrations, users and tenders accessible.

• Prize: €25,000

2nd prize: The AI-Team (Germany)

This is a project that proposes to visualise data from TED, the European public procurement journal, in a graphical database and combine them with ownership information and a list of sanctioned entities. This will allow public officials and competitors to trace the amounts and values of contracts awarded back to the owners of the companies.

• Prize: €15,000

3rd prize: EMMA (France)

This fraud prevention and early detection tool allows public institutions, journalists and civil society to automatically monitor how the relationship between companies and administration is established at the beginning of a public procurement process.

• Prize: €7,000

Winners of the “Public Procurement Opportunities for Young People” Challenge

Public procurement is often perceived as a complex field, where only specialists feel comfortable finding the information they need. Thus, the developers who participated in this challenge had to design, for example, apps aimed at helping young people find the information they need to apply for public procurement positions.

1st prize: Hermix (Belgium, Romania)

It is a tool that develops a strategic marketing methodology aimed at the B2G (business to government) sector so that it is possible to automate the creation and monitoring of strategies for this sector.

• Prize: €25,000

2nd prize: YouthPOP (France)

YouthPOP is a tool designed to democratise employment and public procurement opportunities to bring them closer to young workers and entrepreneurs. It does this by combining historical data with machine learning technology.

• Prize: €15,000

3rd prize: HasPopEU (Romania)

This proposal takes advantage of open EU public procurement data and machine learning techniques to improve the communication of the skills required to access this type of job vacancies. The application focuses on young people, immigrants and SMEs.

• Prize: €7,000

Winners of the “A Europe Fit for the Digital Age” Challenge

The EU aims for a digital transformation that works for people and businesses. Therefore, participants in this challenge developed applications and services aimed at improving data skills, connectivity or data dissemination, always based on the European Data Strategy.

1st prize:: Lobium/Gavagai (Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom)

This application, developed using natural language processing techniques, was created with the aim of facilitating the work of investigative journalists, promoting transparency and rapid access to certain information.

• Prize: €25,000

2nd prize: 100 Europeans (France)

It is an interactive app that uses open data to raise awareness of the great challenges of our time. In this way, and aware of how difficult it is to communicate the impact that these challenges have on society, '100 Europeans' changes the way of conveying the message and personalises the effects of climate change, pollution or overweight in a total of one hundred people. The aim of this project is to make society more aware of these challenges by telling them through the stories of people close to them.

• Prize: €15,000

3rd prize: UNIOR NLP (Italy)

Leveraging European natural language processing techniques and data collection, the Computational Linguistics and Automatic Natural Language Processing research group at the University of Naples L'Orientale has developed a personal assistant called Maggie that guides users to explore cultural content across Europe, answering their questions and offering personalised suggestions.

• Prize: €7,000

Finally, the Audience Award of this 2022 edition also went to CROZ RenEUwable, the same team that won the first prize in the challenge dedicated to fostering commitment to the European Green Pact.

As in previous editions, the EU Datathon is a competition organised by the Publications Office of the European Union in collaboration with the European Data Strategy. Thus, the recently closed 2022 edition has managed to activate the support of some twenty partners representing open data stakeholders inside and outside the European institutions.

The IV edition of the Aporta Challenge, whose motto has revolved around 'The value of data for health and well-being of citizens', has already announced its three winners. The competition, promoted by Red.es in collaboration with the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, launched in November 2021 with an ideas competition and continued earlier this summer with a selection of ten finalist proposals.

As in the three previous editions, the selected candidates had a three month period to transform their ideas into a prototype, which they presented in person at the final gala.

In a post-pandemic context, where health plays an increasingly important role, the theme of the competition sought to identify, recognise and reward ideas aimed at improving the efficiency of this sector with solutions based on the use of open data.

On 18 October, the ten finalists came to the Red.es headquarters to present their proposals to a jury made up of representatives from public administrations, organisations linked to the digital economy, universities and data communities. In just twelve minutes, they had to summarise the purpose of the proposed project or service, explain how the development process had been carried out, what data they had used, and dwell on aspects such as the economic viability or traceability of the project or service.

Ten innovative projects to improve the health sector

The ten proposals presented to the jury showed a high level of innovation, creativity, rigour and public vocation. They were also able to demonstrate that it is possible to improve the quality of life of citizens by creating initiatives that monitor air quality, build solutions to climate change or provide a quicker response to a sudden health problem, among other examples.

For all these reasons, it is not surprising that the jury had a difficult time choosing the three winners of this fourth edition. In the end, HelpVoice initiative won the first prize of €5,000, the Hospital Morbidity Survey won the €4,000 linked to second place and RIAN, the Intelligent Activity and Nutrition Recommender, closed the ranking with third place and €3,000 as an award.

First prize: HelpVoice!

• Team: Data Express, composed of Sandra García, Antonio Ríos and Alberto Berenguer.

HelpVoice! is a service that helps our elderly through voice recognition techniques based on automatic learning. Thus, in an emergency situation, the user only need to click on a device that can be an emergency button, a mobile phone or home automation tools and tell about their symptoms. The system will send a report with the transcript and predictions to the nearest hospital, speeding up the response of the healthcare workers.

In parallel, HelpVoice! will also recommend to the patient what to do while waiting for the emergency services. Regarding the use of data, the Data Express team has used open information such as the map of hospitals in Spain and uses speech and sentiment recognition data in text.

Second prize: The Hospital Morbidity Survey

• Team: Marc Coca Moreno

This is a web environment based on MERN, Python and Pentaho tools for the analysis and interactive visualisation of the Hospital Morbidity Survey microdata. The entire project has been developed with open source and free tools and both the code and the final product will be openly accessible.

To be precise, it offers 3 main analyses with the aim of improving health planning:

• Descriptive: hospital discharge counts and time series.
• KPIs: standardised rates and indicators for comparison and benchmarking of provinces and communities.
• Flows: count and analysis of discharges from a hospital region and patient origin.

All data can be filtered according to the variables of the dataset (age, sex, diagnoses, circumstance of admission and discharge, etc.).

In this case, in addition to the microdata from the INE Hospital Morbidity Survey, statistics from the Continuous Register (also from the INE), data from the ICD10 diagnosis catalogues of the Ministry of Health and from the catalogues and indicators of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and of the Autonomous Communities, such as Catalonia: catalogues and stratification tools, have also been integrated.

You can see the result of this work here.

Third prize: RIAN - Intelligent Activity and Nutrition Recommender

• Team: RIAN Open Data Team, composed of Jesús Noguera y Raúl Micharet..

This project was created to promote healthy habits and combat overweight, obesity, sedentary lifestyles and poor nutrition among children and adolescents. It is an application designed for mobile devices that uses gamification techniques, as well as augmented reality and artificial intelligence algorithms to make recommendations.

Users have to solve personalised challenges, individually or collectively, linked to nutritional aspects and physical activities, such as gymkhanas or games in public green spaces.

In relation to the use of open data, the pilot uses data related to green areas, points of interest, greenways, activities and events belonging to the cities of Malaga, Madrid, Zaragoza and Barcelona. In addition, these data are combined with nutritional recommendations (food data and nutritional values and branded food products) and data for food recognition by images from Tensorflow or Kaggle, among others.

Alberto Martínez Lacambra, Director General of Red.es presents the awards and announces a new edition

The three winners were announced by Alberto Martínez Lacambra, Director General of Red.es, at a ceremony held at Red.es headquarters on 27 October. The event was attended by several members of the jury, who were able to talk to the three winning teams.

Martínez Lacambra also announced that Red.es is already working to shape the V Aporta Challenge, which will focus on the value of data for the improvement of the common good, justice, equality and equity.

Once again this year, the Aporta Initiative would like to congratulate the three winners, as well as to thank the work and talent of all the participants who decided to invest their time and knowledge in thinking and developing proposals for the fourth edition of the Aporta Challenge.

60 participants, 10 mentors and €2,000 in prizes. These are the figures managed by DiValHack, the Hackathon promoted by Red.es and the Diputación de Valencia to bring the project "Connecta Valencia: Smart and Sustainable Tourism Territory" to the citizens. This project, financed by the public entity Red.es with FEDER funds, seeks to improve the tourism competitiveness of Valencian municipalities, increasing their knowledge to offer a better and more sustainable experience to tourists.

What is DiValHack?

DiValHack participants must develop a technological solution that responds to a challenge using the resources and infrastructures that Connecta Valencia offers.

Participants can propose a challenge of their choice related to Connecta Valencia or try to respond to some of the organisation's proposals:

• Mobility challenges: for example, determining the actual congestion of different points of interest, helping to locate parking spaces or helping tourists to travel with a lower carbon footprint.
• Environmental challenges: such as monitoring the air situation or comparing environmental quality between municipalities.
• Tourism challenges: e.g. showcasing thematic routes or promoting nomadism and rural tourism.

Solutions that address several challenges, as well as combining different data sources, from Connecta Valencia and other external repositories, will be considered positively. For example, solutions that monitor noise in contrast to the influx of people or that recommend routes based on the weather or air quality.

When does it take place?

The hackathon will be held on 10 and 17 November 2022, starting at 12:30. Both sessions will be face-to-face.

In the first session, resources will be presented and teams and roadmaps will be defined.

During the week the teams will work on their projects, supported by online mentoring.

On the 17th, the teams will present their solutions, which will be evaluated by a jury, and prizes will be awarded to the three solutions with the best scores. The evaluation criteria are defined in the terms and conditions of the call.

Who can participate?

The hackathon is aimed at students and professionals. The only requirement is to be of legal age.

Participation will take place in teams of three to six people. The team should be multidisciplinary, including technological, financial, business, communication and/or social science profiles, as the evaluation criteria are not only technical.

What do the prizes consist of?

The three proposals with the best scores will receive cash prizes of 2,000 euros, distributed as follows:

• First prize: 1,000 euros
• Second prize: 750 euros
• Third prize: 250 euros

How can I participate?

Participation is free of charge. The deadline for registration is 30 October. To register you must fill in this form.

You can register alone or in a group. If you register alone, the organisation will find a group for you at the event.

Find out more about Connecta Valencia

The Connecta Valencia project has provided the 266 Valencian municipalities with the necessary infrastructure to analyse the flow of tourists in their territory, as well as their impact on the environment, by installing devices that measure mobility and environmental quality. This information allows informed decisions to be taken and public policies to be improved.

To this end, an open source platform has been set up to facilitate access to data through two mechanisms: an API and an open data portal that offers datasets in CSV and JSON formats. Among other information, users can access to data from meteorological and environmental sensors, mobility flows, etc.

You can learn more about the project in the following videos: