Hundreds of excited developers gathered at Konepaja Bruno in Helsinki (6th – 8th November 2015) to solve challenges set out by the City of Helsinki and other challenge partners during the 48-hours Ultrahack hackathon. Ultrahack is a part of Slush Hacks, which is the biggest hackathon in Europe. The goal for the participants is to create new business by utilising open data. The best solutions from Slush Hacks will be presented and awarded at the SLUSH business event on the 12.11.2015.

At Ultrahack, the City of Helsinki and Open Knowledge Finland (OKF) hosted the Smart City / Civic Tech track. The City of Helsinki challenged the developers to create new solutions for the challenge: “what is happening in Helsinki and how can I be a part of it?” Altogether, there were 26 teams with mostly international rosters participating in the Smart city / Civic Tech track.

The winner of the entire track was the Butterfly Effect team, which now has the chance to present their solution at SLUSH and to compete for the 20 000 euro main prize. The Butterfly Effect app provides a new tool for urban planning, which enables citizens easily and by crowdsourcing to start new initiatives for developing the urban environment. The app utilises new technology, as well as Instagram and the city’s open data.

The City of Helsinki awarded their main prize to the team behind the Routes Helsinki app. Routes Helsinki enables the user to find and share interesting and popular routes in the city, for example, a beautiful bike route or shopping route. Alongside the 2000 euro main prize, NewCo Helsinki awarded the winning team with business mentoring and free office space for 6 months, as well as visibility in the Helsinki-info newspaper.

Additionally, the City of Helsinki awarded the teams behind the NoTow and Cook with a Local apps with 500 euro each. NoTow provides a solution for car owners to receive an electronic notice to move their parked car out of the way of street cleaning or other planned maintenance work. Cook with a Local offers tourists a superb platform to delve into the local food culture, as well as the local people.

The winner of Open Knowledge Finland’s 1500 euro main prize was Butterfly Effect and the 500 euro prize went to the Sift.Pics app, which uses crowdsourcing to categorise historical pictures that are available as open data. Additionally, the National Institute for Health and Welfare awarded a special prize for the Miils team. The Aller prize was picked up by the Contrivance Engine team which created Jopas! app.

The main judge for the Smart City / Civic Tech track was a member of Helsinki City Council and the chairman of the City Council IT-division, Otso Kivekäs.

All apps and solutions from Ultrahack, as well as other apps utilising open data were encouraged to participate in the Open Finland Challenge before the registration ended at midnight on the 9.11.2015. The challenge seeks apps that support active citizenship, improve services and reinforce governance. The solutions have to utilise open data, open APIs, open source code, open licenses, or somehow else support and promote openness.

Translated by: Kaarlo Uutela