During implementation and communication of the Ukrainian decentralisation reform, it was crucially important to establish communication and delivery of the messages to all groups of people, especially this who often position themselves as those who are trying to stay away of the political agenda. One of respective sub-groups was young audience, who is actively working with IT solutions, either qualified professional or students of respective faculties.
Overall 7 hackathons (jointly named as “DeHack” hackathons, from combination of words “Decentralisation” and “Hackathon”) in which programmers, on one hand,and local authorities and representatives of hromadas – on the other, collaborated intensively on developing prototypes of IT-based solutions as an answer to hromadas’ needs have been organised.
These hackathons were conducted in different corners of Ukraine, both at regional centres (Lviv, Dnipro, Odesa) and also in small settlements, centres of amalgamated hromadas (Trostianets, Dunaivtsi, Koblevo and Korostyshiv). In addition to their awards, the winners of each of the hackathon also received long-term after-going mentorship support in the areas where the team needed additional expertise.
As a result of the hackathons, 6 IT-solutions out of total awarded with a prize during the series of the events, have been included into the hromadas’ assets lists and being actively using even today (as of Q3 2021).
Also in the framework of the hackathon ecosystem, additional workshops for representatives of local authorities have been organised prior to the main event. Such approach has given not only general understanding of the hackathon idea for the participants, but also resulted in more detailed requests to participants during each hackathon and contributed to establishing more sustainable solutions.
Additional links:
- Video report about DeHack Trostianets (October 2018)
- Open call for amalgamated hromadas (2019) with details about the event concept.
The events were organised within the framework of U-LEAD with Europe: Ukraine – Local Empowerment, Accountability and Development Programme, a multi-donor action of the European Union and its member states Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Poland and Sweden. The Programme cooperates with MinRegion in establishment of a multilevel governance system that is transparent, accountable and responsive to the needs of citizens.
