This weekend an amazing punch of developers, designers, marketers and visionaries gathered in the Hogwarts-like halls of University of Latvia to test their skills, write code and drink countless amount of coffee to make an idea into a working prototype in just 48 hours. What made the event special was the open data and public services focus which saw results that better the local life with helping them “finding a place to pee in one tap”, bringing a fun gamification element to available data with amazing looking games and many many more great ideas. But as the long-time Garage48 mentor and host of the event Elise Sass said to finish the event: “This is just the start. Keep up the spirit!” So all enthusiasts gather and let’s unleash the power of open data!
The rise of open data in the public sector has sparked innovation and fuelled economic development. We see the evidence of the potential of open data shaping the future of civic life and the opportunity to change the relationship between residents and government, especially at the local level. But there wouldn’t be an open data event without available machine readable data sets and for this we need to thank the support of Riga City Council. “Municipality of Riga have lots of data to share and we are proud to cooperate with Garage48 to popularize open data in Latvia. We can use open data to make the city searchable and smart and in Garage48 we will see practical outcomes of what open data can be used for.” said Agris Ameriks, representative of Municipality of Riga and a mentor for the weekend event.
Despite the energy and enthusiasm, open data still has challenges ahead. As the key factor to overcome any obstacle is passion we were lucky to have Clusterpoint as our platinum sponsor. (It cannot be anything else than passion when their tech team stayed up hacking with the teams!) Didzis Rutitis from Clusterpoint explained: “We are very excited to support Garage48 hackathon due to genuine interest and enthusiasm from the participant side. We see that this event is very much aligned with Clusterpoint values, and people here are really passionate about what they are doing.”
We want to thank all our sponsors and mentors, all the organisers and volunteers and of course all the amazing participants for making this event happen! Without further ado, here are the WINNERS for Garage48 Open Data & Public Services Riga 2015:
BEST SCHOOL
Team: Artis Ābolts - back-end developer, Ronalds Česnauskis - back-end developer, Rihards Beikerts - back-end developer, Krists Ozols - front-end developer, Jānis Vītols - front-end developer, Inga Ieraga - project manager, visionary, marketing
http://bestschool.cloudapp.net/
Team: Janis Gruzis, Roberts Darģis, Alexander Rilin, Alexander Koshelev
http://www.facebook.com/patronage48
Team: Lauris Mikāls - project leader, front-end developer, Jānis Seržants - marketer, Aksels Ruperts - visionary, project manager, Kadri Sikk - advisor, consultant, Tomass Gavars - designer, Priit Tamme - back-end developer, Priidu Kull - back-end developer
https://www.facebook.com/StartupGarden?fref=ts
Team: Aleksejs Voloviks, Andrejs Birzgals, Dmitrijs Voloviks, Jevgenijs Boiko, Jekaterīna Saliņa, Andrejs Jurcenoks, Andrejs Pelipenko, Vsevolods Golovins, Aleksandrs Kuvsinovs, Lev Bass
http://riglbox.azurewebsites.net/
https://www.facebook.com/riglbox
CityDash objective is to make municipality/city open data easily available and understandable to people through metrics/visualization of numbers and representing this near to related news and tweets. Everyone should be able to see very personal dashboard with data selected depending on own interests and concerns. More to that - everyone will be able to upload,visualize and share own data from private spreasheets.
People need to loose some of body fluids once in a while. It becomes big issue when we are out of our homes and known places. And problem is exceptionally critic when feeling of loosing some fluids becomes urgent. Every second and every meter. We are linking people with nearest restrooms, based on their current location. We are saving their health for the best, because holding in causes health issues. We are helping tourists to find restrooms in unknown cities and keeping streets clean.
Team: Andris Pakulis - WindowsPhone + TeamLead, Alberts Pumpurs - Marketing, Edgars Ozols - Backend, Mark Bogdanov - Design, Mārtiņš Andersons - Android
Puzzle game with series of objects that have a number physical mechanisms on them. The player is challenged to figure out how to open each one.
Team: Aleksejs Voloviks, Andrejs Birzgals, Dmitrijs Voloviks, Jevgenijs Boiko, Jekaterīna Saliņa, Andrejs Jurcenoks, Andrejs Pelipenko, Vsevolods Golovins, Aleksandrs Kuvsinovs, Lev Bass
Team: Anete Cima, Anrijs Jargans, Osvalds Neiders, Ugis Balmaks
http://atrodiman.lv
@AtrodiMan
It is nesseccary, to help our city to get safer.