CTU and AT&T 2016 V4 Hackathon Winners Celebrate

Team Babble won the US$10,000 grand prize at the CTU and AT&T* 2016 V4 Hackathon. The team created the winning mobile app during the 24-hour development contest.

The CTU and AT&T V4 Hackathon was the first event of its kind held in the Czech Republic by the 2 host organizations. The idea originated with Jaromír Novák, chairman of the CTU Council. It’s part of his effort to drive innovation and entrepreneurship in the Czech Republic and the V4 region working with the private sector.

The winning app introduces and connects people located in the same area – like at a concert or on a train. Team Babble will also receive mentoring from Credo Ventures and Y Soft Ventures.

Chairman Novák; Eric Loeb, senior vice president, AT&T International External & Regulatory Affairs; and John Slamecka, region president, AT&T Global Business – Europe, Middle East, and Africa presented the award to Team Babble.

The CTU and AT&T 2016 V4 Hackathon took place April 22-23 in Prague. It drew 60 contestants from across the Visegrad 4 region. In addition to the Grand Prize, the following teams and members took home prizes out of the 8 participating teams and 8 apps developed at the event:

• Second Place and Best Use of Open Source: Team DameMatiku’s ed tech app enables crowdsourced education video content in local languages. The team won US$2,000 for second place and another US$1,000 from Czech Domain Name Registry (CZ.NIC) for best use of open source. They will also receive mentoring from Y Soft Ventures.

• Third Place: Team We Love Beer for their app that helps parents track/notify the location of their children. The team won US$1,000 and mentoring from Y Soft Ventures.

• Best Use of the Czech Republic’s Open Data: Team OPENAir won US$1,000 for using the Czech government’s open data in their app that provides alerts on air quality.

In addition, 5 contestants also each received US$2,000 worth of online Nanodegree courses from AT&T and Udacity**.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

** More information on the Nanodegree program is available at https://www.udacity.com/nanodegree.  The courses may be selected by the prize recipient from various online Nanodegree curriculum, created by Udacity in conjunction with AT&T.