From December 7 to 8, 2024, the Corruption Prevention Commission, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center Foundation (ISTC) jointly organized a 24-hour hackathon titled “Data Against Corruption.”
The main goal of the hackathon was to propose digital solutions for combating corruption in the following areas:
1. Automated risk assessment implementation
2. Cross-Dataset Corruption Risks Identification Using Machine learning
3. Development of advanced visualization and reporting tools.
The hackathon provided participants the opportunity to compete for a total prize pool of $15,000, which was distributed among the four best teams. Participants were supported by 10 expert mentors from various fields during the event.
During the opening ceremony, welcoming speeches were delivered by John Allelo, Head of USAID Armenia Mission, Areg Gevorgyan, Director of the “ISTС” Foundation, and Mariam Galstyan, Acting Chairperson of the Corruption Prevention Commission.
Ms. Galstyan began by expressing gratitude to the USAID Armenia Mission for their support in making the hackathon a reality, to the “ISTС” Foundation for their help in organizing the event, and to Commission member Lilit Aleksanyan for her significant contribution to coordinating the sector. Mariam Galstyan congratulated the 62 participants, wishing them success in solving the tasks at hand.
After the opening ceremony, the registered participants were divided into 12 teams, which began working on the challenges they were assigned. After 24 hours, the teams presented their projects to the competitive panel.
The competition panel consisted of five members, who evaluated the projects based on the following criteria: innovation, technical implementation, impact, feasibility, and presentation. The panel members included Lilit Aleksanyan, member of the Corruption Prevention Commission; Areg Gevorgyan, Director of the “ILTС” Foundation; Marta Sandoyan, advisor to the Minister of High-Tech Industry of Armenia; Harmik Azaryan, head of UX and Digital Services at the Armenian Information Systems Agency; and Ruben Gevorgyan, head of the “Data Science in Business” master’s program at Yerevan State University.
After the project presentations, the competition panel members held a closed discussion and decided on the winning teams:
1. Best Data Interoperability Innovation– “Riskadar” team (Prize: $5,000)
2. Best Data Verification Solution– “Akvelon” team (Prize: $5,000)
3. Best Corruption Risks Identification Tool– “Plat AI” and “Bribe Busters” teams (Prize: $2,500 for each team)
