Czech Republic is still shaking off 45 years of communism. The era when politicians dictated people what to think and how to behave. And every disobedience was heavily punished. Therefore, after the revolution people were still afraid to speak their mind.

And such environment is great for corruption. When the Ministry of Transportation signed a contract to build an e-commerce platform (for selling highway vignettes) worth 16 000 000 EUR without an open bid, the anticorruption group Znamkamarada organized a hackathon that the whole country was watching, and politicians had to react to.

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 the whole country to build the e-commerce platform in 48h and for free, in order to show how ridiculous the overpriced contract was.

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 via a LinkedIn post as a reaction to the overpriced contract. He made an open call for volunteers from IT and announced that together they would build a solution to show that 16 000 000 EUR is ridiculously overpriced.

LinkedIn is a perfect place to attract relevant people.

His post grabbed the attention of thousands of people from the IT 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 considered their opinions.

Znamkamarada made an open call and organized the anticorruption hackathon. They invited programmers from the whole country to build the e-commerce platform in 48h and for free to show how ridiculous the overpriced contract was. 194 volunteers across the country grouped together and worked around the clock. The prime minister asked for a meeting and the political opposition wanted to be present too. Therefore, they attracted all mass media who wanted to cover the hackathon story. For a couple of days, the hackathon was a hot news topic on prime time.

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.

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Czech society has been fighting the stigma of 45 years of communism. We gave people, who thought that have no power over the corrupted system, a strong voice that needed to be heard. We gave them a powerful tool and showed them a way to change things that are not working for their benefit.