The Anticorruption Hackathon Známkamaráda challenged the corrupted system and the politicians who got used to thinking that they can get away with almost anything. They got used to people being too scared to speak up and get involved after the 45 years of communism. When the Hackathon wanted to make a buzz against an overpriced IT contract, they did it with a LinkedIn post. LinkedIn’s platform is a perfect place where to address professionals. We made an open call for IT volunteers to join the Hackathon and become a part of a one-of-a-kind protest.

Politicians in the Czech Republic got used to thinking that they can get away with almost anything. The last drop on the list of corruption scandals was an overpriced e-shop for highway vignettes. The contract for Asseco Group to build an e-commerce platform (for selling highway vignettes) was worth 16 000 000 EUR without an open bid. This extremely overpriced contract got the attention of the anticorruption group Znamkamarada, who made an open call and organized anticorruption hackathon. They invited programmers from whole country to build the e-commerce platform in 48h and for free, in order to show how ridiculous the overpriced contract is.

The creative idea was to fight the corrupted system in a very straightforward way. There was a suspicious contract costing taxpayers 16 000 000 EUR, and politicians tried to justify it by saying that it is a complex problem needing complex and expensive IT solution. So, we brought together IT specialists as volunteers and announced that they would deliver a modern and professional solution in 48 hours. And give it to the state for free. And moreover, everybody can join in and everybody can watch.

Tomas Vondracek (representing Znamkamarada group) made a call to action with a LinkedIn post as a reaction to the overpriced contract. He made an open call for volunteers from IT and announced that they would build a solution together to show that 16 000 000 EUR is ridiculously overpriced.

His post got the attention of thousands of relevant people from the field, and, moreover, attracted the media and attention of the prime minister who called for a meeting. Politicians in the Czech Republic had never talked to ordinary people before or taken their opinions into consideration.

The anticorruption hackathon Znamkamarada challenged the suspicious and overpriced contract for 16 000 000 EUR to build an e-commerce platform (for selling highway vignettes).

To prove their point, they made an open call for IT volunteers to build the system by themselves in 48 hours and for free.

The prime minister asked for a meeting.

The political opposition attended the event.

The story attracted all media and therefore the whole country was watching the whole event and the events following nonstop.

The prime minister called for meeting.

The overpriced contract was cancelled.

The Minister of Transportation was fired.

A new law for IT contracts was created.

Similar activities from other groups challenging other issues followed.

SOCIAL MEDIA:

Facebook fans in the first 5 days - 2 500

Impressions in the first 5 days - 1 000 000 ?

Daily reach during the campaign - 100 000 on average

Reach on the livestream video from the end of the Hackathon - 55 000

Engagement rate of Facebook posts - over 10 %

Maximum engagement rate - 28 %

Interactions in total - 14 500 (on average 3 000 per day)

WEB PAGE Ferznamka.cz:

Almost 300 000 unique visits of the web page www.ferznamka.cz.?

Over 32 000 placed orders of the Fair Vignette.

More than 2,500 EUR raised for the charitable purpose.

Czech society has been fighting the stigma of 45 years of communism. We tried to give people, who thought that have no power over the corrupted system, a strong voice that needed to be heard.