At the end of Hackacity, the city won with ideas for the future of mobility

28/11/2023

A full day thinking about mobility solutions. This was the challenge launched to 144 participants, distributed by 33 teams, during the sixth edition of Hackacity, which took place this Friday at the Tram Museum. In the end, the city won, with innovative proposals that can pass from the computer to the daily reality of those who circulate around the city.

Hackacity is an initiative of the Porto City Council, coordinated by Porto Digital, through the Porto Innovation Hub, and counts on Ripply as a strategic partner. Created in 2016, the city’s hackathon features technology, innovation, and data enthusiasts who, for one day, are fully dedicated to solving the city’s urban challenges.

“We give data so that people can help us work on the challenges that are posed to us daily”, says the vice president, during a visit to the event.

Filipe Araújo guarantees that from the “brilliant minds” many ideas are used. “Everything that is developed here helps us. We obtain information and data work and try to use it on a daily basis”, emphasizes the councillor for Innovation and Digital Transition.

In addition to the participants being able to analyse and improve the data made available on the Open Data Portal, this initiative also allows for an interesting “networking” between peers and with specialized data mentors, without forgetting the creation of a positive impact on the community.

Largest participation ever

This year, Hackacity had the largest participation ever. For 12 hours, 33 teams were challenged to find solutions to one of the city’s most pressing missions: achieving carbon neutrality by 2030.

In the end, the city won with ideas for mobility and sustainability. For the purposes of the event’s history, here are the winners of the 2023 edition: Hackitects (building a model to improve roadblocks), Critical Data (improving mobility KPIs and simulating traffic flow through a holistic approach) and Data Contact (sharing rides from convenient meeting points).

The Data Quality award went to the Data Pack team (solution nicknamed “GreenGoFlow.ai!” and aims to help organize events in Porto to improve air quality by reducing particulate matter and CO2 emissions, which naturally occur on a major event).