The project warning about advertising on fake news websites won at the “Innovate Europe: Hackathon Series” in Prague
Prague, 14th October 2019
At the “Innovate Europe: Hackathon Series” held in Prague, the project titled, “Fair Advertising” won the hosted hackathon competition under the theme, “How to strengthen free and democratic society?” The winning authors focused on the problem of financing of fake news and conspiracy websites through online advertising.
“Companies do not know often, where is their advertisement displayed. That is why we decided to warn them through Twitter account and inform them about the problem,” stated Alena Zikmundová – a member of the winning team and software analyst. She worked and realized the project with Herbert Ullrich, student of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague.
The winning team, whom received a financial prize, also received an invitation to present their project at the FNF Global Innovation Congress in Berlin on November 6th, 2019.
Second place team was “MA” (Markéta Plesníková, Aneta Hejrovská and Petr Špirit) whose project was dedicated to increasing participation of people in public affairs, titled “Atlas Demos”. Third place was received by Jan Hauser and Pavel Borovička, of “Pochop.me” association, with their project promoting social dialogue titled, “Nesuď.me”.
Jan Bizík, one the event mentors and Coordinator of the Laboratory of the Vodafone Foundation, stated, “The hackathon generated many of great ideas. One of them actually brought results before the winners were declared, and it happens not often. Democracy has many challenges and it is hard and demanding process for administration of public affairs. But we can see, that youth is full of ideas and energy for strengthening of the democracy. I am glad I participated with the hackathon.”
The two-day event was organized by the Institute for Politics and Society and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom. The hackathon was a part of the “Innovate Europe: Hackathon Series”, which took place in around Europe in Prague, Brussels, Budapest and Athens.