The story of 194 IT professionals fighting the corrupted system hit the Czech Republic as storm and they became the n.1 news over all media. From one single post on LinkedIn to national tv breaking news. Anticorruption Hackathon became a symbol of the fight with state ingorance. Especially when Czech people are still shaking of communism era that heavily punished any form of disobedience against the government. These customs persisted for decades after the revolution. The Anticorruption Hackathon changed the game while being on spot light every day and massively supported by a whole country to fight the corrupted system.

Politicians in the Czech Republic got used to think that they can get away with almost everything. The last drop on the list of corruption scandals was an overpriced e-shop for a 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 attention of the anticorruption group called Znamkamarada who made an open call and organized the 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 very straightforward and very public and visible way. We could not stand up to the government as individuals, but as a legitimate representatives of public. We organized Anticorruption Hackathon and made an open call to IT specialists from whole country. They could join and create the platform for free during 48 hours. 194 coders came to make this happen. Whole country was watching and government had to react.

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

LinkedIn is a perfect place to attract relevant people.

His post got attention to thousands of people from the IT field, and moreover attracted the media and attention of Prime Minister who called for a meeting. Politicians in the Czech Republic never talked to ordinary people before, talking into consideration their opinions.

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. 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 couple of days the hackathon was a hot news topic on prime time.

Prime minister called for meeting.

The overpriced contract was cancelled.

Minister of Transportation was fired.

New law for It contracts was created.

Similar activities from another 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)

EARNED MEDIA

90 5970 EUR

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 CZK 67 000 raised for the charitable purpose.

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, strong voice that needed to be heard. We gave them a powerful tool and showed them a way how they can change things that are not working for their good.