"The digital city and I" HACKATON @ BFU - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAvIIgNN7vA

The theme of the Hackathon was “The Digital City and I”, and the event was opened by the European Commissioner of Digital Economy Maria Gabriel and the Mayer of Burgas Dimitar Nikolov

The leading technological event in Burgas in May 2018 happened thanks to the successful synergy between the business, the academic community and the local authority. The active role for the motivation of the participants to create and design working software solutions was of ICT Cluster – Burgas, the organization that supports the information and communication business in Burgas and Bulgaria.  

The big winners in this competition that was held on 28 and 29 May at the Burgas Free University were the teams of Purple and UnaCoin. The Purple team from “Angel Kanchev” University of Ruse, developed a mobile application for the Burgas beaches, free umbrellas, the temperature and the flag signalization, and this application was the reason to win the award of the European Commissioner of Digital Economy and Digital Society Maria Gabriel – to be her guests during the European Week of Programming in Brussels in October.  

The award of the Jury was given to the team of UnaCoin from “Sv.sv. Kiril i Metodii” High School, second place was for "DogGo" and two third places - "Dion" and "UnitZero". For two days, 85 participants from 4 universities and 5 vocational high schools, distributed in 18 teams, were seeking for software and business solutions for applications, related to the digital city development and the territories with water space.  

The areas in which the teams were competing were: E-cology and Water Space, Е-tourism in the City, Е-debates and Civil Participation, Е-infrastructure for Everyone, Digital Education, Digital Services in Administration and Smart E-nergy sources.

"I have chosen Burgas to be the city where Hackathon is held, because this is a city that sets the rhythm and the others follow it. Digitalization gives opportunities for an economic growth and new jobs", said the Commissioner Maria Gabriel.

“ICT Cluster – Burgas is extremely happy with Hackathon 2018@BFU 2018 that was held, because it makes the repudiation of Burgas as one attractive IT center in Bulgaria even more solid. I can assure you that we, the companies and organizations from the Cluster, have carefully followed each one of the teams and the young specialists, and many of them will really soon have the opportunity to continue their professional realization with us”, said Petko Georgiev, Manager of ICT Cluster - Burgas.  

All participants received awards from the municipality of Burgas and from the partners of Burgas Free University in the Hackathon – the Belgium investor Codific, Software Company for Technology, the members of ICT Cluster Burgas, Innovation Systems Burgas, Big Boy Pizza. Each one of the participants received a free ticket for the biggest technological event on the Balkans, WEBIT in Arena Armeec on 27 June 2018.