Hackathon in Slovenia

The Association of Municipalities and Towns of Slovenia, the Economic Institute of Maribor and Prizma Foundation organized a Hackathon event under the title »Be Social, Be Maker« - Educating the next generations of social innovators on 18th of September. 

The main task of the participant was to gather ideas to solve the question »How to empower young people between the ages of 15 and 23 to become social innovators?”. It was stressed out that formal and non-formal education plays an important role in the development of sensibilities for recognizing social problems, and above all the creative and innovation capabilities of each individual. At the age of 5, 90 % of kindergarten children are capable of creative thinking, while later in the education system, with 20 only 5% of people is capable to stay creative. the reason is not physiological changes but the fact that the average school system and the society are not particularly in favour of it. 

Creativity, innovation, creativity… must become socially accepted values and creators are recognized carriers of social development, which requires changes in education and societal culture. The task of the participants was to develop ideas in groups how to approach this problem systematically and to choose the best one from all their ideas. The groups presented their best idea, and the one that scored the highest score at the so-called elevator pitch was selected based on the evaluation.

The selected idea was a program, that is called »Be active, Be cool« and is intended for all elementary schools and secondary schools in Slovenia, who would include active young people in an activation program, where they would discover the challenges in the society / their environment themselves. In cooperation with all the relevant stakeholders in the local environment they would find a solution to the challenge. Each school would choose a solution that would be put into practice. After a year’s trial schools all over Slovenia would then compete with their successfully implemented ideas and choose the best amongst them. 

If the winning group will be eager to elaborate their proposal a bit further and with the help of the project partnership, they will be  able to participate with the developed solution in the international tender “Be social, Be maker” and compete for a prize in the value of EUR 5,000.00 for the development and implementation of the proposed solution. Learn more about the International Challenge at: https://skyrocketplatform.eu/submissions/view-challenge/1.