The Garage48 Open & Big Data 2016 hackathon, taking place in Tartu 21-23 October, aims to tap on the opportunities of open data – the black gold of information society.
Cooperating with the Estonian ministry of economic affairs and the state’s Information System Authority, Garage48 welcomes participants to make their bold and practical solutions of open and big data into reality in just 48 hours.
“This hackathon is a springboard for startuppers, IT developers and designers by offering challenges on how to find practical opportunities to use open and big data,” Priit Salumaa, a cofounder of Garage48, said.
“We are organising a hackathon on this subject because the interest towards open and big data, but also data analysis and machine learning has increased remarkably. Developments in the artificial intellect field are mind-blowing and our aim is to bring the brightest minds in the Estonian technology community together on this subject,” he added.
The hackathon welcomes ideas of practical use and implementation of open data for business purposes and for the benefit of the society.
Open data as the black gold of the information society
According to Andres Kütt, an architect at the Information System Authority, this is a field that holds many opportunities for enterprises in the private sector. “Whoever can make open data work in their benefit, wins. By connecting public data sets with various data sources we get the information that we can use according to our wishes. For example, if a real estate company has the data on land tax, level of crime in the region, public transport, tenure etc, it is possible to calculate the amount of the insurance down payment.”
Mart Põder, an open data expert, added that Europe had come to the realisation that open data was the black gold of the information society. “Open data is a concept that enables to use the data that the society generates as a joint resource and to provide access to it for both startup entrepreneurs and the general society. In Estonia, though, the awareness of the open data concept is still scarce and the development is yet to heat up.”
The hackathon also welcomes participants who don’t have a specific idea or a team, but enough ambition and will to make something happen in the data world.
From idea to service in 48 hours
Since 2010, the Tallinn-based organisation, Garage48, has been organising hackathons where participants create prototypes to test their business ideas in 48 hours. At a hackathon, everyone can pitch their idea on Friday, the most popular ones attract teams that will start executing them, and on Sunday evening the teams present their prototypes. So far, over 50 Garage48 events have taken place in 17 countries and four continents.
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To encourage the participants in gathering their ideas and raising the awareness on the subject, it is possible to join the Garage48 Open & Big Data 2016 pre-event on 21 September at Mooncascade Tallinn office. The cover image is illustrative.
