Winners announced at DemHack

The teams still have to work on projects, but they have prospects.

A bootcamp was held in Moscow from 5 to 10 October Demhack… The six participants of the September hackathon, who had previously reached the final, presented their improved projects to the jury. On October 10, experts determined the winners. They are:

  • VPN123;
  • Cryptocar;
  • Common data.

The winner received 750 thousand rubles as an award, the prize-winners – 375 thousand rubles each. Also, the winner of the first place can count on the support of Habr: the latter will provide a corporate blog as part of the start-up support program.

The jury included the head of the legal practice of RosKomSvoboda Sarkis Darbinyan, the head of the Greenhouse of Social Technologies Alexey Sidorenko, the executive director of Wikimedia RU Stanislav Kozlovsky, the director of the ANO Information Culture Ivan Begtin, the coordinator of the International SecDev Foundation Tattu Mambetalieva, the CEO of Mindbox Alexander Gornik and project manager of “Khabra” Alexey Shevelev.

Winners

VPN123

Initially, the project was conceived as a blocking bypass service, similar to conventional VPN services, but, unlike them, not aimed at protecting traffic in general and therefore not allowing the entire stream to pass through, but only blocked resources.

Now VPN123 is positioned not as a service, but as software (a set of scripts and a client application) in the public domain. The project does not want to become another VPN service, but wants to give any user the opportunity to create their own service, the authors of the project said.

During the bootcamp, VPN123 built a clear concept and development plan, determined the target audience and monetization methods, and expanded the team. From a technical point of view, the developers made the function of managing the server via SSH from the client, updated the client’s design, created a one-page site and prepared user instructions for buying servers.

“I’ve been working with VPN for several years, I know how it all works, from the inside. There were some questions about the services that I wanted to solve. I made the project as for myself. And it is designed for the widest audience, since it is as simple as possible to install and operate, “- the author of the project Anton Bulychev.

Cryptocar

Cryptocar is a blockchain used car registry that is designed to store information, as well as to combat falsification of information about car maintenance and fake entries in service books. Now these books exist either in paper form, and they are easy to forge, or in electronic, but not everyone has the latter, they are issued only for new cars and are available to owners only when moving to a dealership, the team explained.

Cryptocar is a web service, chatbot and android application. All data is stored in Ethereum, so no one can change it. Only information about the car is recorded in the register, nothing about the auto mechanic is stored there. The project assumes an open API for integration with partners, for example, with Avtokod.

The following data gets into the database:

  • unique ID of the car service;
  • VIN auto;
  • date of repair;
  • repair category;
  • information about auto parts.

During the bootcamp, the team, she said, improved the performance of the project: improved the security of requests, made a more understandable UI / UX, transferred the project to Solid and switched to the real Etherium network, contacted potential clients to get feedback.

“Communication with mentors helped a lot. We didn’t think about some points. As developers, we do everything well, beautifully and conveniently for the user, but we miss some things – from the user point of view, legal, etc. Thanks to criticism, we worked out and even changed the concept in some way, “- team member Anastasia Khudoyarova.

“The idea was born out of life: for our captain this is a sore point. We thought, how we would like it to be, so that it would not be possible to falsify information about cars, ”- team member Ivan Yakovenko.

Common data

Common data – originally a platform for the exchange of personal data for datasets. The project has clarified the definition and is now positioned as a data crowdsourcing platform for projects and research. Now he collects not personal data, which few are motivated to share, but data that can potentially be useful directly to research projects, for example, answers to questions on a topic.

The user is hidden behind the UserID, the researchers only receive answers to questions and do not know the names of those who gave them. All collected personal data from the platform is deleted.

The team also thought about a way to protect against leakage, loss and data manipulation: encryption, backups and an anti-fraud system will help here.

As the authors of the project said earlier, organizations do not have enough data, so they do not understand their customers, their audience and, as a result, they do not make such a useful product as they could (the business also loses profit). The users of the platform who share information, according to the authors, get the opportunity to support projects whose values ​​they share.

The audience of the project is students, educational organizations, scientific and research groups, startups.

“Our platform is a place where there are projects and users, and we connect them together. The main task is to create a community of people who love research, data analysis, are ready to help projects and share data, ”shared team members Anastasia Gisina and Veronika Volkova.

Other projects

“Freedom of assembly” (instead of the Orange team that left the bootcamp)

The team presented project – an interactive document generator for applying for a mass public event. Formally, submitting an application is simple, you just need to notify the authorities. In practice, organizers face a lot of bureaucratic difficulties, which they do not always cope with. The project proposes to simplify communication and draw the attention of the state to the problem.

The platform will provide a list of places prohibited from holding public events (federal courts, military units, special facilities), a schedule of actions, tips on how to submit documents and provide a description of rallies and processions with graphic data (for example, routes). All this is intended to protect the organizers from mistakes and remove the need for legal advice from the process, so that the organizer “submit – an application – forget about bureaucracy – hold the event”.

The future plans of the team are to integrate the service with “Gosuslugi” and scale it across the country.

“This year during the pandemic has shown that, in principle, any grandmother can, through the“ Gosuslugi ”system, resolve issues without the atavism of paper documents. Our task is to hint to the state that it is necessary to take a step into the 21st century. We are not specifically talking about the fact that events are dispersed, we are talking about entering the problem. We make it easier for activists to submit notifications, and we help the authorities see what worries citizens so much that they are ready to go out. We are also fighting the demonization of shares so that the words “rally” do not make officials’ hair stand on end, ”commented Natalya Zvyagina, director of Amnesty International in Russia.

“We want to create a feedback system and make a two-way street. The overclocking will, of course, continue, but it is very important to start somewhere. Any dialogue begins with the first words. In principle, people still have an abstract understanding of freedom of assembly, although this is a certain process. And we are working with this, ”added Kirill Erlikhman.

STOP282

Project for a solution to determine the potential risks of initiating criminal and administrative cases for publications on the Internet under Art. 282 (about inciting hatred and enmity – ed.), Primarily for journalists. The authors of the project believe that media editorial offices are not always able to track changes in legislation that pose risks for them.

The application will work as follows. A person enters the site, enters a text in a special form and it is highlighted what is wrong in this text from the point of view of legislation. For example, it may contain a mat or a mention of an organization recognized as extremist in Russia.

The project is not aimed at covering all violations, only a few articles have been selected. Photos will also not be affected, we are talking only about texts.

“A jury member commented on a good topic to remove editors from publications,” said Ivan Begtin, director of ANO Information Culture. He doubts that the market has no need for this: otherwise, all editors can be called professional unfit. Jury member, coordinator of the International SecDev Foundation Tattu Mambetalieva advised the team to address other possible violations, for which the project could help the media.

“Detector”

An electronic service to counter the dissemination of inaccurate information, check media materials, statements of government agencies, politicians and public figures, and improve the critical perception of information. Referring to various studies, the authors of the project said that three quarters of journalists do not resort to fact-checking, and their readers often do not have critical thinking skills.

The authors clarified the target audience of the project (interested users of electronic media), consumer demand (improving the skills of fact-checking and critical thinking) and added a function to increase awareness and media literacy of citizens. The team also improved some of the technical characteristics of the project, tested the methodology for placing texts on starting materials and made a guide on fact-checking (which is news, the principle of two or more sources to verify information, the adequacy of the media platform).

“The problem of media trust is now big, even the classic, old“ telegraph ”news agencies have it. It would seem that the format itself does not allow for distortions and we do not expect them. But they do happen. We want to offer a clear method of checking the news, as far as possible, ”- project manager Mikhail Parfenyuk.

The jury members generally positively assessed the level of the projects, although they admitted that the participants still have a lot of work to do.

“Ideas have not been finished yet, but there is potential for implementation. On the whole, I appreciate the number and quality of the hackathon participants. All of them are aimed at strengthening digital rights in one way or another. We would like to see the development of projects and whether they can be useful for end consumers, ”concluded a member of the jury, head of the legal practice of RosKomSvoboda Sarkis Darbinyan.

Another member of the jury, director of ANO Information Culture, Ivan Begtin, lamented that the hackathon participants ignored the current topic of privacy during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also noted the weaknesses of the winners, which they need to work on:

“The weakness of VPN123 lies in the definition of their value proposition compared to other similar services. Common data has a weakness in dealing with legal risks. Cryptocar has a major problem with the startup model, but they have a team that can experiment with ideas and try to reach them. “

Each project can be tweaked, but in general they sense trends, says Stanislav Kozlovsky, a member of the jury, executive director of Wikimedia RU. According to him, VPN123 is the most straightforward to implement. Common data is the most difficult, but very interesting. But in general, all projects are very diverse, the expert concluded.

“Even if someone has not won now, everyone has prospects, and I encourage them to continue participating in hackathons in order to get together, get feedback and refine them,” he said.

The bootcamp participants were sympathetic to each other and supported colleagues throughout the event.

“I really liked that the jury chose young teams, which, I hope, inspired by the chance they got, will finalize their projects, and they will shoot,” Kirill Erlikhman, a member of the Freedom of Assembly team, rejoiced for his rivals.

Photos from the event in social networks: FB / VK

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