E-Residency sponsors youth hackathon aimed at supporting UN sustainable development goals

This month, the e-Residency programme supported AIESEC’s YouthSpeak Hackathon in Kyiv, Ukraine. The event brought more than 60 bright young IT specialists together with experienced mentors to work on projects and services aimed at achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and promote peace and prosperity. These 17 goals build on the successes of the Millennium Development Goals, while also including new areas such as climate change, economic inequality, innovation, sustainable consumption, and peace and justice. The-Residency programme itself is serving these goals by enhancing innovation and enabling equal access to opportunities.

Hackathons aren’t new in the world of business and technology, but they are increasingly also used as a way to tackle broader public issues such as efficient governance, smart city development, and sustainability.

As e-Residency’s representative in Ukraine, I was happy to kick off the hackathon by sharing our story and discussing e-Residency’s commitment to fostering innovation and empowering entrepreneurs around the world.

Thanks to its highly skilled and educated workforce, Ukraine has no shortage of entrepreneurial talent, ideas, or enthusiasm. The country has the potential to become one of Europe’s leading startup hubs and some startups are also actively helping the public sector to achieve SDGs, such as ProZorro — an open source, open data, e-procurement system which made public procurement in Ukraine much more transparent, accountable and efficient. This government startup had been awarded the Open Government Award at the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Global Summit in Paris last year.

At the conclusion of the hackathon, three teams were selected as winners of the event.

The first team created a Telegram bot called Motiwaste that can be used to raise environmental awareness and educate people about recycling. Telegram is one of the most popular social media networks in Ukraine, and the planned bot will mainly be used to engage with youth and create ambassadors for sustainability in Ukraine.

The second team came up with the idea for Langoos, a foreign language learning application that works through building associations and creative storytelling.

Finally, the third team selected created a prototype application called Save! that will enable people to request an ambulance to their exact location with only one click on their phone.

A hackathon promises that agency can triumph over structure, and initiative over inertia. We can see this method applied to an ever-greater number of social challenges now, and the e-Residency programme is keen on contributing to solve these issues.

All three of the winning teams of AIESEC’s YouthSpeak Hackathon will be given an opportunity to become e-residents and launch their projects digitally in Estonia.