One of the main ideas behind Hacker Games hackathons by Startup Lithuania is encouraging teams to continue working on their projects beyond the event. Or, in other words, seeing prototypes born over the course of weekend turning into viable products, startups and, eventually, million dollar companies!

So what defines a successful startup? Obviously, great idea, a passionate team, a viable business model and other factors. However, as Justas Janauskas from Vinted has recently put it, having a product/service that solves a real problem is also crucial. "Having a product with strong value proposition and vision that solves a real-life problem no one else is solving OR solves it 10 times better than others is another lesson of tremendous importance", – Vinted's CEO has suggested.

As Hacker Games series will move into its fourth event this weekend, we already have a significant interest from business and public organizations in Lithuania. Some of them have even offered a few ideas that would be of huge benefit for their processes. Maybe it’s something your team could work on this weekend?

Ideas of interest

1. Hospital navigation app. The Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LSMU) Kauno klinikos, the largest healthcare institution in Lithuania, has contacted Startup Lithuania with an idea for hackathon participants. The hospital campus is more than 151.000 sq. meters large and had more than 1,3M visits last year. "Despite of existing infrastructure, patients and their relatives find it complicated to navigate towards a doctor or department of interest. The experience of other countries show that this problem can be solved, at least partly, by embracing technology. For instance, having a mobile app that helps to navigate in the hospital grounds. We believe such app could help people to navigate around the hospital, to improve the conditions for hospital employees and to increase patient satisfaction", – Renaldas Jurkevičius, CEO of Kaunas Klinikos, writes. The app might also consist of a solution for parking – both a map and status/reservation system.

2. Automatic electricity/gas meter reading with a smartphone (ideally with offline mode available). Lietuvos Energija Group, a Lithuanian energy distributor, offers its problem to solve for the participants of Hacker Games: Vilnius. It currently oversees more than 168 different types of electricity and gas meters. Some of them are digital, however, most of them are mechanical and have different fonts, user interface, let alone different display wear conditions. The company wishes to standartise and to automate the collection of meter readings.

3. Klaipėda city app. Klaipėda municipality also in interested in developing an app that might consist of the following features: news/events/main info/municipality employee contacts, geo-location based toursit information, a safety button for kids that would connect them to the nearest police patrols, a registry of city problems, discovering and voting for council projects.

4. Lithuanian labour exchange app. Lithuanian Labour Exchange (LLE) is an executive agency under the Ministry of Social Security and Labour. LLE is responsible for the provision of labour market services to jobseekers and employers and the implementation of active labour market policy measures. It sees a potential for a mobile app that would ease the search of available jobs. Its website has more than 20k daily unique users, but it is not responsive. An app could solve this problem, and features such as geo-specific information or a possibility to contact employers directly would improve user experience and job opportunities for the unemployed.

5. Apps for Kaunas city municipality. Kaunas is interested in smart solutions for parking, public transport and city traffic management/information.

6. Drug, tobacco and alcohol control department apps. The substance supervisor is interested in a smoking cessation app based on content from www.nerukysiu.lt, healthy lifestyle promotion application for schools, libraries and other public spaces, and also a mobile/desktop game that would bust popular myths about substance consumption and would educate the youth.

Whilst we can’t guarantee an immediate customers, products in line with these briefs have a great potential to be deployed in the real world! Of course, you can pursuit your very own idea or join a team you find the most exciting one.

See you this Friday, we still have spots available so register yourself or your team and.. let the games begin!

Prizes at the Hacker Games

Hacker Games very special t-shirts for all participants will provided by our long-time friends Koralis and Metasite. Also, a special Sunday dinner will brought by the evergrowing TransferGo, let alone snacks and drinks over the course of weekend from 1stdibs.com. And the winners of final pitches will get:

• Electronics Lab Kit + Maker Membership for a Month for Each Team Member from Green Garage

• €1000 for Industry Event Trip from Game Insight

• €500 in Cash from Startup Highway

• PEBBLE Smartwatches from Adform

• 12 Month Subscription to Unity Pro (with iOS Pro, Android Pro, Team license) from Unity

• Special VR prize – Gear VR from Aresi Labs

By the way, Adform will be giving away Pebble Smartwatches to each member of the team with the most innovative idea. And they will also invite the winners to spend one day in the Adform Vilnius office. Here they will have the opportunity to pitch their ideas and get coaching from Adform’s experts on how to shape their product.

Adform is known not only for its digital advertising platform but also for the unique and informal culture that defines its offices. The company has a flat hierarchy with self-regulating teams, talented people, and an aversion to bureaucracy. Geeky atmosphere guaranteed!

See you there!