Two-day coding rush starts: looking for fair services combining data sources

Junction Hackathon, an event that has grown into Europe’s biggest, will bring together 1,300 programmers, designers and developers for a weekend of work at Otaniemi’s Dipoli, in Espoo, Finland. The event will see 48 hours of busy coding with the aim of producing lots of new ideas, service concepts and learning experiences.

Sitra, which has taken part in Junction before, will this time take part in the data economy-themed Mastering My Data challenge. Sitra’s IHAN® project lays down principles and rules for a new kind of fair data economy in which users can better manage and utilise the data accumulated about them by various services.

Therefore, we challenge the teams to boldly create new kinds of services that combine ease of use with the smooth mobility of data between different sources. We encourage thinking about the user as an active agent who defines where and under which conditions their data is used and who obtains personalised custom services through permits.

Watch the pitch video for the Mastering My Data project here!

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The challenge does not provide ready-made data sets or technology that can constrain ideas; the teams get complete freedom with regard to conceptualisation, data sources and implementation, for example.

“The challenge is a fine example of Sitra’s role as a driver of a new kind of thinking,” says Jyrki Suokas, Leading Specialist at Sitra. “It will be interesting to see how the teams perceive the fair data economy and the consumer’s role in it. And what kinds of surprising combinations of data sources and services the teams will create.”

In addition to Sitra’s staff, the teams will be supported and mentored from start to finish by a broad range of external specialists, including a service designer and a blockchain specialist. The teams will also be assisted in refining their output after the event. The best demos arising from the challenge will have the opportunity to apply for funding under the IHAN® project technical pilots until the end of the year.

Follow the progress of the challenge on Twitter with the hashtags #IHAN, #hackthefuture and #Junction2018! The winners of the challenges will be decided on the afternoon of Sunday 25 November.