On Friday, April 28, 2023, at 4:00 PM, the final of the first online hackathon for high school students, titled “Let’s Make the School Better,” was held. The event was organized by the Science and Technology Park of Montenegro, the Innovation Fund, and ICT Cortex.

For the final phase, 12 teams competed, and the jury selected the top 5 teams during the pre-selection process. On April 27 and 28, these teams had the opportunity to work with mentors from the fields of programming, marketing, business, and project management to improve their ideas and presentations.

Five teams (projects) made it to the final competition of the hackathon:

• Students from the Electro-Economic School and Gymnasium “Miloje Dobrašinović” in Bijelo Polje.
• – students from the Podgorica Gymnasium “Slobodan Škerović” and the Economic School “Mirko Vešović”.
• Elektronska biblioteka – students from the Nikšić Gymnasium “Stojan Cerović”.
• Odupri se! and SchoolMate – students from the Podgorica Electrical Engineering School “Vaso Aligrudić”.

Each team had 5 minutes to present their idea to the jury members during the final stage of the competition, followed by an additional 5 minutes to answer the jury’s questions. The teams prepared exceptionally high-quality presentations with developed application prototypes, making the task for the jury quite challenging. After the presentations, the jury members rated each team based on predefined criteria (technical-technological solution proposal, quality of presentation, and feasibility of idea realization).

Third place and a prize of €200 were awarded to the students of the Bijelo Polje Electrical-Economic School and Gymnasium for their project betterEdu – a digital platform that addresses various problems faced by schools, such as peer violence, reporting damage to school property, and enabling easier communication and sharing of teaching materials. Second place and a prize of €300 were awarded to the students of the Nikšić Gymnasium “Stojan Cerović” for their project Elektronska biblioteka (Electronic Library), which tackles issues faced by traditional libraries. The platform allows students to search available literature, reserve books, and receive information about new books and cultural events at the library. Additionally, the application provides users with information on book return dates and recommends books they may be interested in based on previously read books. It also offers access to and reading of literature available in digital format.

First place and a prize of €500 were awarded to the students of the Podgorica Electrical Engineering School for their project Odupri se (Resist). This application addresses the issue of peer violence by allowing students to report the time and location of a scheduled conflict. The information is then sent to the police, and public order authorities intervene to prevent physical confrontation. Additionally, the app enables the reporting of psychological and physical abuse and allows for anonymous communication with the school psychologist.

The students demonstrated great enthusiasm and dedication in designing an application that could improve processes in secondary schools while also drawing attention to the challenges their peers face. The difference between the winning teams was minimal, and the main criteria for declaring the winner were the relevance of the problem being addressed and the feasibility of implementing the idea.

Thank you to everyone for participating, and congratulations to the winners for their well-deserved awards!

The prize fund amounted to €1000, which was provided by the Čini dobro Foundation and the Science and Technology Park of Montenegro.

We hope that this competition will become a tradition and that it will attract more and more students each year.