concursos

Do you accept the challenge of transforming Bizkaia from its open data? This is the "Datathon Open Data Bizkaia", a collaborative development competition organised by Lantik and the Provincial Council of Bizkaia.

Participants will have to create the mockup of an application that helps to solve problems affecting the citizens of Bizkaia. To do so, they will have to use at least one dataset from among all those available on the Open Data Bizkaia portal. These datasets may be combined with data from other sources.

How does the competition unfold?

The competition will be held in two phases:

• First phase. Participating teams must submit a proposal document in PDF format. Among other information, the proposal shall include a brief description of the solution, its functionalities and the datasets used.

• Second phase. A jury will evaluate all applications received and that are valid in time and form. Seven finalist proposals will then be selected. The shortlisted teams will have to produce a mockup and a promotional video of maximum 2 minutes, presenting the team members and describing the most outstanding features of the solution.

These phases will be carried out according to the following timetable:

• From 19 September to 19 October. Registration period open to submit proposals in pdf format.
• 26 October. Announcement of shortlisted teams.
• 14th November. Deadline for submitting the mockup and video.
• 18th November. The final will be held in Bilbao, although it will also be possible to attend, optionally, online. The videos will be presented and the winning teams will be selected.

Who can participate?

The competition is open to anyone over 16 years of age, regardless of nationality, as long as they have a valid DNI/NIF/NIE, passport or other public document that proves the identity and age of the participant.

You can participate as an individual or in teams of a maximum of six people.

What do the prizes consist of?

Two winners will be chosen from the 7 finalists, who will receive the following prize money:

• First prize: €2,500.
• Second prize: €1,500.

In addition, the other finalist teams will receive €500.

Para llevar a cabo la valoración, el jurado tomará como referencia una serie de criterios detallados en las bases de la competición: relevancia, reutilización de datos abiertos y aptitud para el propósito.

In order to carry out the assessment, the jury will take as a reference a series of criteria detailed in the competition rules: relevance, reuse of open data and fitness for purpose.

How can I participate?

Participants must upload their proposal to a sharepoint enabled for this purpose. A model document that can be used as a reference can be found on the website.

Beforehand, it is necessary to register using the form on the website. After registration, the team will receive an e-mail with instructions on how to submit the proposal.

The proposal must be submitted before 19 October 2022 at 12h.

Find out more about Open Data Bizkaia

Open Data Bizkaia provides citizens and reusing agents with access to the public information managed by the Provincial Council of Bizkaia. There are currently more than 900 datasets available.

Its website also offers resources for reusers, an API, good practices and examples of applications created with datasets from the portal that can serve to inspire the participants in this competition.

Find out more about Bizkaia's Open Data strategy in this article.

There are only a few days left until the end of summer and, as with every change of season, it is time to review what the last three months have brought in the Spanish open data ecosystem.

In July we learned of the latest edition of the European Commission's DESI (Digital Economy and Society Index) report, which places Spain ahead of the EU average in digital matters. Our country is in seventh position, improving two places compared to 2021. One of the areas where it performs best is in open data, where it ranks third. These good data are the result of the fact that an increasing number of organisations are committed to opening up the information they hold and more reusers are taking advantage of this data to create valuable products and services, as we will see below.

Advances in strategy and agreements to promote open data

Open data is gaining ground in political strategies at national, regional and local level.

In this regard, in July the Council of Ministers approved the draft Act on the Digital Efficiency of the Public Justice Service, an initiative that seeks to build a more accessible Justice Administration, promoting the data orientation of its systems. Among other issues, this act incorporates the concept of "open data" in the Administration of Justice.

Another example, this time at the regional level, comes from the Generalitat de Valencia, which launched a new Open Data Strategy at the beginning of the summer with the aim of offering quality public information, by design and by default.

We have also witnessed the signing  of collaboration agreements to boost the open data ecosystem, for example:

• The Ajuntament de L'Hospitalet and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya have signed an agreement to offer training to undergraduate and master's degree students in Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, based on open data work.
• The University of Castilla la Mancha has agreed with the regional government to launch the 'Open Government' chair in order to promote higher education and research in areas such as transparency, open data or access to public information.
• The National Centre for Geographic Information (CNIG) and Asedie have signed a new protocol to improve access to geographic information, in order to promote openness, access and reuse of public sector information.

Examples of data reuse

The summer of 2022 will be remembered for the heat waves and fires that have ravaged different corners of the country. A context in which open data has demonstrated its power to provide information on the state of the situation and help in extinguishing fires. Data from Copernicus or the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) have been used to monitor the situation and make decisions. These data sources, together with others, are also being used to understand the consequences of low rainfall and high temperatures on European reservoirs. In addition, these data have been used by the media to provide the public with the latest information on the evolution of the fires.

Firefighting based on open data has also been developed at the regional level. For example, the Government of Navarre has launched Agronic, a tool that works with Spatial Data Infrastructures of Navarre to prevent fires caused by harvesters.  For its part, the Barcelona Provincial Council's open data portal has published datasets with "essential information" for the prevention of forest fires. These include the network of water points, low combustibility strips and forest management actions, used by public bodies to draw up plans to deal with fire.

Other examples of the use of open data that we have seen during this period are:

• The Environmental Radiological Surveillance Network of the Generalitat de Catalunya has developed, from open data, a system to monitor the radiation present in the environment of the nuclear power plants (Vandellòs and Ascó) and the rest of the Catalan territory.
• Thanks to the open data shared by Aragón Open Data, a new scientific article on Covid-19 has been written with the aim of finding out and identifying spatio-temporal patterns in relation to the incidence of the virus and the organisation of health resources.
• The Barcelona Open Data initiative has launched #DataBretxaWomen, a project that seeks to raise public awareness of the existing inequality between men and women in different sectors.
• Maldito dato has used open data from the statistics developed by the National Statistics Institute (INE) based on mobile positioning data to show how the population density of different Spanish municipalities changes during July and August.
• Within its Data Analytics for Research and Innovation in Health Programme, Catalonia has prioritised 8 proposals for research based on data analysis. These include studies on migraines, psychosis and heart disease.

Developments in open data platforms

Summer has also been the time chosen by different organisations to launch or update their open data platforms. Examples include:

• The Statistical Institute of Navarre launched a new web portal, with more dynamic and attractive visualisations. In the process of creation, they have managed to automate statistical production and integrate all the data in a single environment.
• Zaragoza City Council has also just published a new open data portal that offers all municipal information in a clearer and more concise way. This new portal has been agreed with other city councils as part of the 'Open Cities' project.
• Another city that already has an open data portal is Cadiz. Its City Council has launched a platform that will allow the people of Cadiz to know, access, reuse and redistribute the open data present in the city.
• The Valencian Institute of Business Competitiveness (IVACE) presented an open data portal with all the records of energy certification of buildings in the Valencian Community since 2011. This will allow, among other actions, to carry out consumption analysis and establish rehabilitation strategies.
• Aragón Open Data has included a new functionality in its API that allows users to obtain geographic data in GeoJSON format.
• The National Geographic Institute announced a new version of the earthquake app, with new features, educational content and information.
• The Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge presented SIDAMUN, a platform that facilitates access to territorial statistical information based on municipal data.
• The open data portal of the Government of the Canary Islands launched a new search engine that makes it possible to locate the pages of the portal using metadata, and which allows exporting in CVS, ODS or PDF.

Some organisations have taken advantage of the summer to announce new developments that will see the light of day in the coming months, such as the Xunta de Galicia, which is making progress in the development of a Public Health Observatory through an open data platform, Burgos City Council, which will launch an open data portal, and the Pontevedra Provincial Council, which will soon launch a real-time budget viewer.

Actions to promote open data

In June we met the finalists of the IV Aporta Challenge: "The value of data for the health and well-being of citizens", the final of which will be held in October. In addition, some competitions have been launched in recent months to promote the reuse of open data, for which the registration period is still open, such as the Castilla y León competition or the first UniversiData Datathon. The Euskadi open data competition was also launched and is currently in the evaluation phase.

With regard to events, the summer started with the celebration of the Open Government Week, which brought together various activities, some of them focused on data. If you missed it, some organisations have made materials available to citizens. For example, you can watch the video of the colloquium "Open data with a gender perspective: yes or yes" promoted by the Government of the Canary Islands or access the webinar presentations to learn about the Data Office and the Aporta Initiative.

Other events that have been held with the participation of the Data Office and whose videos are public are: the National Congress on Archives and Electronic Documents and the Data Spaces as ecosystems for entities to reach further.

Finally, in the field of training, some examples of courses that have been launched these months are:

• The National Geographic Institute has launched an Inter-administrative Training Plan, with the aim of generating a common culture among all the experts in Geographic Information of the public bodies.
• Andalucía Vuela has launched a series of free training courses aimed at citizens interested in data or artificial intelligence.

International News

The summer has also brought many new developments at the international level. Some examples are:

• The beginning of the meteorological summer saw the publication of the results of the first edition of the Global Data Barometer, which measures the state of data with respect to societal issues such as Covid19 or climate.
• The 12 finalists of the Eu Datathon 2022 were also announced.
• An interactive edition of Eurostat's regional yearbook 2021 was published.
• England has developed a strategy to harness the potential of data in health and healthcare in a secure, reliable and transparent way.

This is just a selection of news among all the developments in the open data ecosystem over the last three months. If you would like to make a contribution, feel free to leave us a message in the comments or write to dinamizacion@datos.gob.es.

For yet another year since 2016, the Junta de Castilla y León has opened the deadline to receive the most innovative proposals in the field of open data. The sixth edition of the competition of the same name aims to "recognise the development of projects that provide any type of idea, study, service, website or application for mobile devices, using datasets from the Open Data Portal of the Junta de Castilla y León".

With this type of initiative, Castilla y León seeks to showcase the digital talent present in the autonomous community, while promoting the use of open data and the role of reusing companies in Castilla y León.

The deadline for submitting applications has been open since 5 August and will end on 4 October. When submitting projects, participants will be able to choose between the in-person or digital option. The latter will be carried out through the Electronic Headquarters of Castilla y León and can be processed by both individuals and legal entities.

4 different categories

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

• “Ideas" category: This category includes projects that describe an idea that can be used to create studies, services, websites or applications for mobile devices. The main requirement is to use datasets from the Junta de Castilla y León's Open Data portal.
• "Products and Services" category: Includes those that provide studies, services, websites or applications for mobile devices and that use datasets from the Open Data portal of the Junta de Castilla y León, which are accessible to all citizens via the web using an URL.
• “Didactic Resource" category: This section includes the creation of new and innovative open didactic resources (published under Creative Commons licences) that use datasets from the Junta de Castilla y León's Open Data portal, and serve to support teaching in the classroom.
•  “Data Journalism" category: Finally, this category includes journalistic pieces published or updated (in a relevant way) in any medium (written or audiovisual) that use datasets from the Junta de Castilla y León's Open Data portal.

Regarding the awards of this sixth edition, the prizes amount to €12,000 and are distributed according to the category awarded 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
• Student Prize €1,500

 Didactic Resource category

• First prize €1,500

Data Journalism category

• First prize €1,500
• Second prize €1,000

As in previous editions, 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. Likewise, the jury's decisions will be taken by majority vote and, in the event of a tie, the jury will decide who holds the presidency.

Finally, the winners will have a period of 5 working days to accept the award. If they do not accept the prize, it will be understood that they have renounced it. If you want to consult the conditions and legal bases of the competition in detail, you can access them through this link.  

Winners of the 2021 edition

The 5th edition of the Castilla y León Data Competition had a total of 37 proposals of which only eight of them won some kind of award. With a view to participating in the current edition, it may be of interest to know which projects won the jury's attention in 2021.

Ideas Category

The first prize of €1,500 went to APP SOLAR-CYL, a web tool for optimal sizing of photovoltaic solar self-consumption installations. Aimed at both citizens and public administration energy managers, the solution aims to support the analysis of the technical and economic viability of this type of system.

Products and Services Category

Repuéblame is a website aimed at rediscovering the best places in which to live or telework. In this way, the app catalogues the municipalities of Castilla y León based on a series of numerical indicators, developed in-house, related to quality of life. By winning the first prize in this category, it received a cash prize of 2,500 euros.

Data Journalism Category

Asociación Maldita contra la desinformación won the first prize of €1,500 for its project MAPA COVID-19: see how many cases of coronavirus there are and how busy your hospital is.

Finally, after the jury decided that the entries submitted did not meet the criteria set out in the rules, the "Educational Resource" category was declared void and, therefore, none of the participants were awarded a prize.

If you have any questions or queries about the competition, you can write an email to: datosabiertos@jcyl.es.

UniversiDATA organizes its first Datathon.

Are you interested in data analysis? If the answer is yes, you will be interested to know that UniversiDATA has launched a datathon to recognize open data processing projects based on the datasets available on its portal. 
This initiative seeks not only to reward talent, but also to promote the content offered and encourage its use, inspiring new projects through the dissemination of reference cases. It is also an opportunity to get to know their reusers and better understand their objectives, challenges and needs. This valuable information will be used to drive improvements to the platform.

Who can participate?

The call is open to any natural person of legal age with tax residence in the European Union. Students, developers, researchers or any citizen interested in data analysis can participate.

How does the competition take place?

The competition is structured in two phases:

Elimination phase 

A jury of experts will evaluate all the applications received on the basis of the project descriptions provided by the participants in the registration form. Four criteria detailed in the competition rules will be taken into account: impact, quality of the proposal, usability/presentation and reusability.
After the evaluation, a maximum of 10 finalists will pass to the next phase.

Final phase

The finalists will have to present their projects via videoconference to the members of the jury. 
After the presentation, the three winners will be announced.

What are the requirements for the projects submitted?

The submitted projects must fulfill three obligations:

• At least one dataset published on the open data portal UniversiDATA must be used. These datasets may be combined with secondary data from other sources.
• The use made of the UniversiDATA datasets must be essential to obtain the results of the analysis.
• The analysis of the data must have a clear purpose or utility. Generic data treatments will not be accepted. 

It should be noted that existing work, previously presented in other contexts, may be submitted. Furthermore, there are no limitations regarding the technology to be used for the analysis -each user may use the tools he/she considers appropriate- or regarding the format of the final result of the analysis. That is to say, you can compete with a mobile App, a web application, a data analysis in Jupyter or R-Markdown, etc...

What are the prizes?

The three winners will receive a total of €3,500, distributed as follows:

• First prize: €2,000 
• Second prize: 1,000 €. 
• Third prize: 500 €.

The other finalists will receive a diploma of recognition.

How can I participate?

The registration period is now open. The easiest way to participate is to fill out the form available at the end of the competition website before October 14, 2022.
Before registering, we recommend that you review all the complete information in the competition rules. If you have any questions, you can contact the organizers. Various channels will soon be available for participants to ask questions regarding not only the competition procedures, but also the platform's datasets.

Competition schedule

• Receipt of applications: until October 14, 2022
• Publication of the 10 finalists: November 14, 2022
• Communication of the three winners: December 16, 2022

Find out more about UniversiDATA

UniversiDATA was born at the end of 2020 with the aim of promoting open data in the higher education sector in Spain in a harmonized way. It is a public-private initiative that currently encompasses Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Universidad de Valladolid, Universidad de Huelva and "Dimetrical, The Analytics Lab", S.L.
In 2021 UniversiDATA won the First Prize of the III Desafío Aporta for its project UniversiDATA-Lab, a public portal for the advanced and automatic analysis of datasets published by universities. You can learn more about the project in this interview.

7 February 2022 was the date chosen for the launch of the sixth edition of the EU Datathon. Organised by the Publications Office of the European Union, this competition aims to raise awareness of the value of open data and showcase the opportunities for data-driven business models.

EU Datathon 2022 gives participants the opportunity to gain international visibility for their innovative ideas based on open data, as well as compete for a total prize fund of €200,000.

4 challenges available

Unlike the 2021 edition, which presented 3 challenges, this EU Datathon 2022 has 4 challenges to solve:

• Challenge 1: 'The European Green Deal'. The European Green Deal is the blueprint for a modern, sustainable and competitive European economy. Participants in this challenge must develop applications or services aimed at creating a greener Europe, for example to boost resource efficiency or reduce pollution.
• Challenge 2: 'Transparency in public procurement'. Transparency in public procurement helps to track how public money is spent, to fight fraud and to analyse economic and market trends. Therefore, this challenge invites developers to explore the wealth of information available and develop an application to expose it in a transparent way.
• Challenge 3: 'EU public procurement opportunities for young people'. Public procurement is often perceived as a complex field, where only specialists feel comfortable finding the information they need. This challenge invites developers to propose, for example, apps that help young people to easily find the information they need when applying for public procurement positions.
• Challenge 4: 'A Europe fit for the digital age'. The EU aims for a digital transformation that works for people and businesses. This challenge therefore drives the creation of applications or services that improve data literacy, increase connectivity or make data more understandable for all, based on the European Data Strategy.

How to participate?

Participants must submit an idea for an application that links and uses open datasets to address one of the four challenges above. Importantly, at least one of the datasets used to develop the idea must come from the datasets available on data.europa.eu.

In addition, participants opting for challenges 2 or 3 must use at least one dataset published by the EU Tender Electronic Daily (TED).

Who can participate?

The EU Datathon 2022 is aimed at citizens from all over the world interested in prototyping products based on public open data and even developing new business models, for-profit or not-for-profit, through the exploration of such data.

Participation is open to individuals or legal entities, in teams of one to four members. However, staff working in the institutions, agencies and bodies associated with or contracted by the EU Publications Office are not eligible to apply.

How does the competition unfold?

Participating teams must register their proposal via this form by 31 March 2022 at 23:59 CET (Central European Time). After the registration deadline, the competition will run in 2 phases:

1.Pre-selection

The jury, composed of experts from within and outside the EU institutions and agencies, will evaluate the registered proposals on the basis of a number of criteria such as the relevance of the selected challenge or the potential and creativity of the proposed solution.

For each challenge, the 6 highest scoring teams will be shortlisted. All participating teams will be notified of the results on 25 April 2022.

2.Fase final

The 24 shortlisted teams (6 per challenge) will be invited to turn their proposals into applications. Each team will have to produce and email a 60-second video presenting their app and the team working on it by 15 August 2022.

The final of the competition will take place on 20 October. The applications submitted in each challenge will be evaluated by a jury of experts. In addition to the relevance of the proposal, the open data used (economic and social potential, interoperability with other data sources, etc.) and fit for purpose (maturity of the product, benefits offered, etc.) will be taken into account.

What is the prize money?

This year, the total prize money increases considerably to 200,000 euros, which will be divided for each challenge as follows:

• First place: 25,000 euros
• Second place: EUR 15,000
• Third place: 7,000 euros

From datos.gob.es we invite you to submit your proposal. Remember that if you need inspiration, you can take as a reference CleanSpot, the Spanish company that managed to be a finalist in the EU Datathon 2021, winning second place in its challenge.

You also have at your disposal the information about the winning projects of all the editions of the Aporta Challenge, which, like the EU Datathon, seeks to reward ideas and prototypes based on open data that drive improvements in specific sectors of activity. The first year the focus was on the public sector, the second on the agri-food, forestry and rural sectors, and the third on education. The call for participants for the fourth edition, focusing on the field of health and well-being, has just closed.

Good luck to all participants!

On March 5, communities around the world will join together to celebrate Open Data Day 2022. It is an annual celebration that seeks to showcase the benefits and encourage the adoption of open data policies in governments, businesses and civil society.

Throughout the day -and on upcoming dates- local groups from all corners of the world organize different actions related to the publication and reuse of data. In Spain, some activities are also being held, such as:

DATATHON 2022

• Date: From March 4 to April 30, 2022.
• Format: Online
• Organizers: University of Alicante, Miguel Hernández University, PAGODA, Dades Valencia, Cátedra Transició energética, Catedrades, Valencian Government, Polytechnic University of Valencia, University of Valencia, ACICOM and MESURA.

The Datathon 2022 kicks off on March 4, in which participants will have to use machine learning, artificial intelligence or data science tools to respond to a challenge of their choice related to the following fields:

A) Responsible production and consumption.

B) Environmental aspects (agriculture, waste, energy transition...).

C) Culture.

This is a free event. All natural persons of legal age can participate, in teams of 2 to 6 people. It is necessary to register before March 4 through eventbritte.

Prizes will be awarded in two categories: undergraduate students (€750 for each challenge) and master's, doctoral and corporate students (€500 for each challenge). In addition, in both categories, three runners-up prizes of €350 will be awarded to the winners of each challenge.

The competition will be accompanied by various informative sessions and workshops aimed at participants, which will take place throughout the competition (from March 4 to April 30, 2022). Some examples of these workshops are: "How to request information from the administration and legality of data use", "Data mining and visualization" or "Telling stories with data".

Open Data Day 2022

• Date: 4-8 March 2022.
• Format: Face-to-face and online.
• Organizers: Government of Catalonia.

The Open Government Secretariat of the Government of Catalonia also joins the celebration of the International Open Data Day, with activities from March 4 to 8.

• March 4, at 9:30 am (fase-to-face and online). The value of open data. The day will be dedicated to open data reusers. There will be a round table with experts in the field of reuse and two documents of interest will be presented: the new volume of the Open Government collection, "The value of open data and use cases", by the consultant Alícia León Molina, which collects examples of use related to open data in different countries, and the III report on data reuse prepared by the COTEC Foundation. It will be broadcasted via youtube.
• March 7, at 10h (online). Open Science and Citizen Science. Monday will be dedicated to the use of open data in the world of research. The Directorate General for Research will present CORA - Catalan Open Research and experiences from the private sector will be presented by Ideas for Change.
• March 8, at 13:30h (online): What can be the role of local governments in an emerging data economy? Representatives from the city of Rennes, France, and Catalonia will explain the RUDI data Rennes project, led by Rennes Métropole and funded by the European Union: a "social data network". This event will be held in English and French.

Open Data Day 2022: For a more effective reuse of open data

• Date: March 9, 2022, 17h
• Format: Face-to-face
• Organizers: Open Data Barcelona Initiative

Just two years after its last face-to-face event, Open Data Barcelona Initiative brings back the "face-to-face" meetings with a conference aimed at disseminating knowledge and experiences about public open data and its reuse. The evento will last from 5pm to 7pm and will be structured around two round tables:

• Opportunities linked to open data in institutions, where the new features of institutional data portals will be discussed, highlighting the datasets offered and the new functionalities that boost their reuse.
• Projects based on the reuse of open data, focusing on how to use such data in a project, highlighting its potential as a source of knowledge to solve the challenges faced by various groups.

The event is free of charge, but prior registration is required.

Other international events

In addition to the activities held in our country, events are also taking place in other parts of the world, some of which can be followed online.

For example, New York City celebrates from March 5 to 13, 2022 its Open Data Week, organized by the Office of Data Analytics of the New York City Mayor's Office and BetaNYC. This celebration occurs each year to coincide not only with Open Data Day, but also with the New York City Open Data Act, which was enacted on March 7, 2012. This year, NY Open Data Week is being celebrated in a hybrid format with both in-person and online activities. All activities are directly related to publicly available open data about New York.

Another example of an online event is the OSM Africa March Mapathon: Map Sierra Leone, an initiative that seeks to support the development of the OpenStreetMap community in Africa.

If you want to know about other activities that will be held on the occasion of Open Data Day 2022, you can visit their website.

Technology is now an essential component of our daily lives. It is no secret that a large number of companies worldwide have been making significant investments in order to digitize their processes, products or services and thus offer greater innovation in them.

All this has led to an increase in the demand for technological profiles related to the data field by companies, organizations and institutions at an international level. However, in the current labour market this type of profile is not as abundant as the demand. This situation has also been exacerbated by the current health pandemic.

Hackathons: a new formula for attracting quality talent

One of the mechanisms that is gaining popularity to try to increase the recruitment of talent within the technological field are hackathons. These are data-related competitions or challenges whose main objective is to find solutions to real problems.

Hackathons offer the possibility for participants to test their knowledge and for companies to recruit talent for their teams. In fact, these challenges offer some advantages for companies looking to recruit new professionals by allowing them to:

• Observe how participants work
• Interact with them in a more relaxed environment
• Shorten selection process times

Some examples of company-driven hackathons

This mechanism is already used by companies around the world, even for several years. In Spain we find some examples such as the ‘Súper Hackathon BBVA’, whose objective was to find the best young engineering talent, while offering participants the opportunity to learn how to work within a large bank. Another example is the ‘KPMG Talent Hackathon’, whose challenge allowed the company to position itself as an employer brand among STEM students.

Also noteworthy is the ‘Hackathon FACSA Castellón’, an event that is held annually and whose objective is to seek the development of qualified talent, entrepreneurship and the promotion of a technological ecosystem that turns Castellón into a benchmark for innovation. In addition, this challenge symbolizes the collaboration between all the driving companies (Nayar Systems, Cuatroochenta, IoTsens and Eventscase) that support the initiative of the Association of Technology Companies of Castellón, Xarxatec. Among other advantages, this hackathon offers participants the possibility of accessing a job bank, allowing companies to attract talent, as well as promoting collaboration and teamwork.

Popular Internet hackathon platforms to recruit new professionals

These processes do not always have to be face-to-face. On the Internet we can find numerous platforms that offer coding challenges that put companies looking to attract talent in contact with users interested in showing their skills to technology companies and thus get a job opportunity. These tools allow companies of various sizes to have the opportunity to organize this type of competition, and broaden the geographic spectrum of the search, making it easier for candidates from different locations to compete on equal terms.

Here are some examples of these platforms:

Kaggle

Kaggle is one of the best-known platforms among developers. Focused mainly on learning through play (a technique known as gamification), it also offers companies a space for attracting talent. Some of the companies that have taken advantage of its benefits are Banco Santander, Facebook or Yelp.

You have more information in this previous article about Kaggle, where the gamification platforms DrivenData, Devpost, Innocentive and CrowdAnalytix.

HackerRank

It offers challenges for both home users who want to practice their coding skills and prepare for job interviews, as well as organizations looking to identify and hire new developers. Users of this platform can use Python, Java, JavaScript, PHP, C++ or SQL to solve the challenges presented from the instructions provided.

To learn more about this platform, in this article published by The House of Codes you can consult the top 50 challenges found in HackerRank.

Coderbyte

This application is dedicated to helping people solve problems at an industrial level. Like the previous platform, it offers a section for developers to prepare technically for future job interviews, and another one dedicated to companies that want to interview, evaluate and select candidates.

One of the main advantages of Coderbyte is that it presents challenges adapted to the needs of the main brands with which it collaborates, such as Google, HBO or PWC, among others.

CodinGame

Can you imagine being able to get a job through a gaming environment? This platform offers developers the possibility to solve programming challenges through a gamified experience. CodinGame features high-level algorithms and coders that offer solutions to both novice and expert developers.

In addition, it has a dedicated area exclusively for companies wishing to find the best developers thanks to its online coding tests.

Codewars

This platform allows developers to improve their skills through small coding exercises called 'katas'. One of its most outstanding qualities is the large number of languages available through which it allows challenges to be performed.

Qualified is Codewars' partner platform dedicated to organizations wishing to recruit new talent through its platform. Thanks to it, companies can benefit from its technical skills assessments to find professionals that fit their needs.

HackerEarth

This well-known platform not only presents coding challenges, but also hackathons and various kinds of competitions. Did you know that many of the challenges found on this platform can be asked in any job interview related to this field? This is because one of the services offered by HackerEarth is the proposal of recruitment solutions to top-tier technology companies.

In short, more and more companies, organizations and platforms are showing interest in participating and creating this type of challenge to achieve two main objectives: to attract talent and to increase the training and knowledge of their users.

It is also worth mentioning the European Hackathon Manager project, a tool for organising and coordinating this type of event. This tool has recently been tested by Aragón Open Data.

This has been just a small selection of platforms, but if you know of more platforms that may be of interest to our community, do not hesitate to write to us at dinamizacion@datos.gob.es.

Content prepared by the datos.gob.es team.

Hackathons, contests or challenges related to data are a different way to test your ideas and/or knowledge, while acquiring new skills. Through this type of competition, solutions to real problems are sought, often in multidisciplinary teams that share diverse knowledge and points of view. In addition to being divnamic and entertaining, they are a great opportunity to give visibility to your work or solution, expand contacts or improve your position in the job market.

Now that the registration period for the IV Aporta Challenge, we wanted to ask the winners of the previous editions how their experience was and what it brought them on a personal and professional level.

From ideas to viable businesses

So far, three Aporta Challenges have been completed, focused on the field of public administration, the agri-food, forestry and rural sector and the digital education, respectively.

The projects presented in the different editions have been very diverse: from master's thesis or research team projects to prototypes of already consolidated companies or ideas that have ended up becoming viable businesses. It is the case of Light, the winner of the first edition of the Challenge, in 2017. Light is an app that encourages people to be more sustainable in their daily lives through gamification, using data from Smart cities. After the Challenge, its creators continued working on the project, developing its business model.

Agesta, for its part, a company already consolidated before the Challenge, which took over the second prize of the II edition with a web system aimed at estimating the volume of poplars on a local scale. Agresta continues to develop highly successful projects both nationally and internationally.

Another example is UniversiDATA-lab, the winning solution in the third edition, whose final was held last summer. It is a public portal for advanced and automatic analysis of datasets published by universities. Also the second prize of this edition, the IPM project, continues to run after the Challenge is over.

Promotion of the labor profile in the market

In many other cases, the Challenge served as a platform to gain visibility and broaden the curriculum, which was influential in attracting the attention of various companies and institutions. This situation has left many creators without time to continue developing the solution presented in the Challenge -although they do not rule out taking it up again in the future-, but it has given them great possibilities for the future.

The experience of participating in the Aporta Challenge

But if there is something that the participants in the previous challenges stand out, it is the experience they acquired. The Aporta Challenge was an opportunity to shape an idea and develop a data project from scratch.

Do you want to participate in the new edition? The term is open until February 15

If you want to follow in the footsteps of the winners of the Aporta Challenge, we inform you that the fourth edition is still open. In this case it seek ideas for solutions aimed at driving improvements in the field of health and wellness, that use open data in their development.

To participate, you just have to fill out the form on the Electronic headquarters of Red.es, indicating what your idea is and its value to society, as well as the data sources you would use. You will also have to upload a video explaining the idea.

You have all the information in our web and in the challenge rules.

Go ahead and put your talent to the test!

Content prepared by the datos.gob.es team.

On November 2, the awards ceremony took place for the winners of the V edition of the Castilla y León Open Data Contest. This competition, organized by the Ministry of Transparency, Spatial Planning and Foreign Action of the Junta de Castilla y León, recognizes the realization of projects that provide ideas, studies, services, websites or mobile applications, using for this datasets from this Open Data Portal.

The event had the participation of Francisco Igea, Vice President of the Junta de Castilla y León, and Joaquín Meseguer, General Director of Transparency and Good Governance of the same, in charge of awarding the awards to the winners.

Of the 37 applications received, a jury of experts in the field has chosen 8 projects that have emerged as winners in the various categories.

Category Ideas

In this category, proposals to develop studies, services, websites or applications for mobile devices are awarded.

• The first prize, € 1,500, went to APP SOLAR-CYL, a web tool for optimal sizing of photovoltaic solar self-consumption installations. Aimed at both citizens and energy managers of the Public Administration, the solution seeks to support the analysis of the technical and economic viability of this type of system. The idea was presented by professors from the Electrical Engineering Area, members of the ERESMA (Energy Resources' Smart Management) research group at the University of León: Miguel de Simón Martín, Ana María Díez Suárez, Alberto González Martínez, Álvaro de la Puente Gil and Jorge Blanes Peiró.
• The second prize, € 500, went to Dónde te esperan: Recommender for municipalities in Spain, by Mario Varona Bueno. Thanks to this tool, users will be able to find the best place to live based on their preferences or even chance.

Category Products and Services

This category differs from the previous one in that ideas are no longer awarded, but projects accessible to all citizens via the web through a URL.

• Repuéblame won the first prize, which this time consisted of € 2,500. Presented by Guido García Bernardo and Javier García Bernardo, it consists of a website to rediscover the best places to live or telework. The application catalogs the Castilian-Leon municipalities based on a series of numerical indicators, of its own creation, related to quality of life.
• The second prize, € 1,500, went to Plagrícola: Avisos de Plagas Agrícolas CyL by José María Pérez Ramos. It is a mobile app that informs farmers of the pest alerts published by the Instituto Tecnológico Agrario de Castilla y León (Itacyl), so that they can carry out the necessary preventive and curative measures.
• Complete the podium disCAPACIDAD.es [web], which won the third prize of € 500. Its creator, Luis Hernández Fuentevilla, has developed a website that centralizes offers and aid related to employment for people with disabilities in Castilla y León.
• This category also included a prize for students of €1,500. The winner was Ruta x Ruta x Castilla y León, presented by Adrián Arroyo Calle. This web application allows users to consult routes of all kinds, as well as points of interest located in their vicinity, such as monuments, restaurants or events. The solution also allows users to share their tracks (GPS recordings).

In addition, an honorable mention has been given to the candidatures presented by students "APP BOCYL Boletín Oficial Castilla y León”, by Nicolás Silva Brenes and "COVID CyL" presented by Silvia Pedrón Hermosa. This seeks to encourage students to work with data and present their projects to future calls.

Data Journalism Category

This category is designed to reward relevant journalistic pieces published or updated in any medium, whether written or audiovisual.

• MAPA COVID-19: check how many cases of coronavirus there are and how is the occupation of your hospital from the Maldita Association against misinformation won the first prize of € 1,500. After a work of compiling all the available data that the regional governments publish about the hospitals, Maldita has created a map to see how many cases of coronavirus there are and how the different hospitals are occupied. Information on ICU occupancy is also included in some hospitals.
• The second prize, € 1,000, went to De cero a 48.000 euros: who charges how much in the mayors of Castilla y León. Annual Compensation Explorer. Through various visualizations, its creator, Laura Navarro Soler, reveals information available in the Información Salarial Puestos de la Administración (ISPA). This information is crossed with other types of data such as the number of inhabitants in each region or the level of dedication (exclusive, partial or non-dedicated).

The category "Didactic Resource" has been declared void. The jury considered that the candidatures presented did not meet the criteria set out in the bases.

In total, the 8 awarded projects have received 12,000 euros. They will also have the option of participating in a business development consultancy.

Congratulations to all the winners!

R is one of the programming languages most popular in the world of data science.

It has a programming environment, R-Studio and a set of very flexible and versatile tools for statistical computing and creation of graphical representations.

One of its advantages is that functions can be easily expanded, by installing libraries or defining custom functions. In addition, it is permanently updated, since its wide community of users constantly develops new functions, libraries and updates available for free.

For this reason, R is one of the most demanded languages ​​and there are a large number of resources to learn more about it. Here is a selection based on the recommendations of the experts who collaborate with datos.gob.es and the user communities R-Hispanic and R-Ladies, which bring together a large number of users of this language in our country.

Online courses

On the web we can find numerous online courses that introduce R to new users.

Basic R course

• Taught by: University of Cádiz
• Duration: Not available.
• Language: Spanidh
• Free

Focused on students who are doing a final degree or master's project, the course seeks to provide the basic elements to start working with the R programming language in the field of statistics. It includes knowledge about data structure (vectors, matrices, data frames ...), graphics, functions and programming elements, among others.

Introduction to R

• Taught by: Datacamp
• Duration: 4 hours.
• Language: English
• Free

The course begins with the basics, starting with how to use the console as a calculator and how to assign variables. Next, we cover the creation of vectors in R, how to work with matrices, how to compare factors, and the use of data frames or lists.

Introduction to R

• Taught by: Anáhuac University Network
• Duration: 4 weeks (5-8 hours per week).
• Language: Spanish
• Free and paid mode

Through a practical approach, with this course you will learn to create a work environment for R with R Studio, classify and manipulate data, as well as make graphs. It also provides basic notions of R programming, covering conditionals, loops, and functions.

R Programming Fundamentals

• Taught by: Stanford School of Engineering
• Duration: 6 weeks (2-3 hours per week).
• Language: English
• Free, although the certificate costs.

This course covers an introduction to R, from installation to basic statistical functions. Students learn to work with variable and external data sets, as well as to write functions. In the course you will hear one of the co-creators of the R language, Robert Gentleman.

R programming

• Taught by: Johns Hopkins University
• Duration: 57 hours
• Language: English, with Spanish subtitles.
• Of payment

This course is part of the programs of Data science and Data Science: Basics Using R. It can be taken separately or as part of these programs. With it, you will learn to understand the fundamental concepts of the programming language, to use R's loop functions and debugging tools, or to collect detailed information with R profiler, among other things.

Data Visualization & Dashboarding with R

• Taught by: Johns Hopkins University
• Duration: 4 months (5 hours per week)
• Language: English
• Of payment

Johns Hopkins University also offers this course where students will generate different types of visualizations to explore the data, from simple figures like bar and scatter charts to interactive dashboards. Students will integrate these figures into reproducible research products and share them online.

Introduction to R statistical software

• Taught by: Spanish Association for Quality (AEC)
• Duration: From October 5 to December 3, 2021 (50 hours)
• Language: Spanish
• Of payment

This is an initial practical training in the use of R software for data processing and statistical analysis through the simplest and most common techniques: exploratory analysis and relationship between variables. Among other things, students will acquire the ability to extract valuable information from data through exploratory analysis, regression, and analysis of variance.

Introduction to R programming

• Taught by: Abraham Requena
• Duration: 6 hours
• Language: Spanish
• Paid (by subscription)

Designed to get started in the world of R and learn to program with this language. You will be able to learn the different types of data and objects that are in R, to work with files and to use conditionals, as well as to create functions and handle errors and exceptions.

Programming and data analysis with R

• Taught by: University of Salamanca
• Duration: From October 25, 2021 - April 22, 2022 (80 teaching hours)
• Language: Spanish
• Payment

It starts from a basic level, with information about the first commands and the installation of packages, to continue with the data structures (variables, vectors, factors, etc.), functions, control structures, graphical functions and interactive representations, among others topics. Includes an end-of-course project.

Statistics and R

• Taught by: Harvard University
• Duration: 4 weeks (2-4 hours per week).
• Language: English
• Payment

An introduction to basic statistical concepts and R programming skills required for data analysis in bioscience. Through programming examples in R, the connection between the concepts and the application is established.

For those who want to learn more about matrix algebra, Harvard University also offers online the Introduction to Linear Models and Matrix Algebra course, where the R programming language is used to carry out the analyzes.

Free R course

• Taught by: Afi Escuela
• Duration: 7.5 hours
• Language: Spanish
• Free

This course was taught by Rocío Parrilla, Head of Data Science at Atresmedia, in virtual face-to-face format. The session was recorded and is available through Yotube. It is structured in three classes where the basic elements of R programming are explained, an introduction to data analysis is made and visualization with this language is approached (static visualization, dynamic visualization, maps with R and materials).

R programming for beginners

• Taught by: Keepcoding
• Duration: 12 hours of video content
• Language: Spanish
• Free

It consists of 4 chapters, each of them made up of several short videos. The first "Introduction" deals with the installation. The second, called "first steps in R" explains basic executions, as well as vectors, matrices or data frames, among others. The third deals with the “Flow Program R” and the last one deals with the graphs.

Autonomous online course Introduction to R

• Taught by: University of Murcia
• Duration: 4 weeks (4-7 hours per week)
• Language: Spanish
• Free

It is a practical course aimed at young researchers who need to analyze their work data and seek a methodology that optimizes their effort.

The course is part of a set of R-related courses offered by the University of Murcia, onMultivariate data analysis methods, Preparation of technical-scientific documents and reports or Methods of hypothesis testing and design of experiments, among others.

Online books related to R

If instead of a course, you prefer a manual or documentation that can help you improve your knowledge in a broader way, there are also options, such as those detailed below.

R for Data Professionals. An introduction

• Author: Carlos Gil Bellosta
• Free

The book covers 3 basics in high demand by data professionals: creating high-quality data visualizations, creating dashboards to visualize and analyze data, and creating automated reports. Its aim is that the reader can begin to apply statistical methods (and so-called data science) on their own.

Learning R without dying trying

• Author: Javier Álvarez Liébana
• Free

The objective of this tutorial is to introduce people to programming and statistical analysis in R without the need for prior programming knowledge. Its objective is to understand the basic concepts of R and provide the user with simple tricks and basic autonomy to be able to work with data.

Statistical Learning

• Author: Rubén F. Casal
• Free

It is a document with the notes of the subject of Statistical Learning of the Master in Statistical Techniques. Has been written inR-Markdown using the package bookdown and is available in Github. The book does not deal directly with R, but deals with everything from an introduction to statistical learning, to neural networks, through decision trees or linear models, among others.

Statistical simulation

• Author: Rubén F. Casal and Ricardo Cao
• Free

As in the previous case, this book is the manual of a subject, in this case ofStatistical simulation of the Master in Statistical Techniques. It has also been written inR-Markdown using the package bookdown and is available in the repository Github. After an introduction to simulation, the book addresses the generation of pseudo-random numbers in R, the analysis of simulation results or the simulation of continuous and discrete variables, among others.

Statistics with R

• Author: Joaquín Amat Rodrigo
• Free

It is not a book directly, but a website where you can find various resources and works that can serve as an example when practicing with R. Its author is Joaquín Amat Rodrigo also responsible forMachine Learning with R.

Masters

In addition to courses, it is increasingly common to find master's degrees related to this subject in universities, such as:

Master in Applied Statistics with R / Master in Machine Learning with R

• Taught by: Esucela Máxima Formación
• Duration: 10 months
• Language: Spanish

The Esucela Máxima Formación offers two masters that begin in October 2021 related to R. The Master in Applied Statistics for Data Science with R Software (13th edition) is aimed at professionals who want to develop advanced practical skills to solve real problems related to the analysis, manipulation and graphical representation of data. The Master in Machine Learning with R Software (2nd edition) is focused on working with real-time data to create analytical models and algorithms with supervised, unsupervised and deep learning.

In addition, more and more study centers offer master's degrees or programs related to data science that collect knowledge on R, both general and focused on specific sectors, in their syllabus. Some examples are:

• Master in Data Science, from the Rey Juan Carlos University, which integrates aspects of data engineering (Spark, Hadoop, cloud architectures, data collection and storage) and data analytics (statistical models, data mining, simulation, graph analysis or visualization and communication) .
• Master in Big Data, from the National University of Distance Education (UNED), includes an Introduction to Machine Learning module with R and another of advanced packages with R.
• Master in Big Data and Data Science Applied to Economics, from the National University of Distance Education (UNED), introduces R concepts as one of the most widely used software programs.
• Master Big Data - Business - Analytics, from the Complutense University of Madrid, includes a topic on Data Mining and Predictive Modeling with R.
• Master in Big Data and Data Science applied to Economics and Commerce, also from the Complutense University of Madrid, where R programming is studied, for example, for the design of maps, among others.
• Master in Digital Humanities for a Sustainable World, from the Autonomous University of Madrid, where students will be able to program in Python and R to obtain statistical data from texts (PLN).
• Master in Data Science & Business Analytics, from the University of Castilla-La Mancha, whose objective is to learn and/or deepen in Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Business Analytics, using R statistical software.
• Expert in Modeling & Data Mining, from the University of Castilla-La Mancha, where as in the previous case also works with R to transform unstructured data into knowledge.
• Master of Big Data Finance, where they talk about Programming for data science / big data or information visualization with R.
• Big Data and Business Intelligence Program, from the University of Deusto, which enables you to perform complete cycles of data analysis (extraction, management, processing (ETL) and visualization).

We hope that some of these courses respond to your needs and you can become an expert in R. If you know of any other course that you want to recommend, leave us a comment or write to us at dinamizacion@datos.gob.es.