HackTUES is the first and only hackathon of its kind in Bulgaria, organized by students for students. The first edition was held in 2015, initiated by students from the Technological University "Electronic Systems" at TU - Sofia. This year's technological competition (12.10.) focused on "Smart City". It was participated in by 125 students, divided into 29 teams. 30 IT professionals from various companies, many of whom are alumni of the school, served as mentors and jury members. The hackathon was organized by a team of 12th-grade volunteers with the support of the Association of TUES Alumni and the management of TUES. The competition was held in a hybrid format during the first two weekends of October. Teams worked on their projects remotely, while the final of the competition and the award ceremony took place at Sofia Tech Park in compliance with all anti-epidemic measures.
First Prize was won by an Automated system for package delivery with drones. The device DRUN was created by the team "FAnton": Angel Penchev, Simeon Georgiev, Boyan Ivanov, Bogdan Mironov, and Miroslav Mirchev from 12th grade. Through a neural network, the drone navigates to fulfill the order. The team also received special awards from Experian Bulgaria and Kaufland IT Hub. The distinction was presented personally by the Rector of the Technical University – Sofia, Prof. Dr. Eng. Ivan Králov.
Second prize in the hackathon, awarded by Prof. Dr. Eng. Tanya Vasileva, scientific supervisor of TUES, won team "789" with their project Peio, which represents a reworked 60-year-old radio using digital technologies. Its creators, Iliana Genova, Stefan Antonov, Venelin Atanasov from 12th grade, and Boryana Stefanova and Ivaylo Krustev from 10th grade, also received the special prize from TelebidPro.
Third prize the jury awarded to Team "Threads" about the project NotInfo, a Chrome browser extension that tracks whether the content a person is reading is false information or not. It was developed by Aneta Tsvetkova, Kalin Doichev, Kostadin Kostadinov, and Evgeni Dimov from the 2020 cohort of TUT.
The Special Award for best project with embedded microcomputer technology was awarded to Smart Water Meter – a modern water meter with a display showing current and monthly water consumption. The project was developed by Alexander Ivanov, Ivan Georgiev, and Vasil Kolev from 9th grade, team "C--". The award was provided by "Comet Electronics".
Deputy Mayor of Sofia, Dr. Doncho Barbalev, presented two special awards on behalf of the Association for the Development of Sofia: to team "Easy Life" from 11th grade for their project Bus Locator (a mobile application that helps the visually impaired with urban transport), as well as the team "Segmentation Fault" for their developed mobile application Walkly, which encourages people to walk instead of using their cars.
For the first time this year, special awards were given for "Best Presentation" to the team, for "Audience's Favorite Project" and for "Rising Stars" – best development by 9th-grade students. The teams "789“ and team "Threads" by students, respectively 10th, 12th grade and the 2020 graduating class of TUES, were awarded for "Best Presentation. The award for favorite project went to the teamHolding, with the development by 12th-grade students – Covid Tracker – a mobile application that helps people determine if they are infected before symptoms appear. Rising stars, who won the award for best project are Simeon Jordanov, Martin Bozhilov, Yassen Angelov, Matei Zahariev, Kaloyan Doichinov from team "AyyMD Tech Tips", with their project Techary, a web platform that combines the best of every social media in one place.
The first in the history of the hackathon award "Best Mentor" Vladimir Garistov from TUES, Marin Datsiev from TelebidPro, and Boyan Georgiev from Experian received them. They are the IT specialists who dedicated a lot of time and enthusiasm to guide the student teams in realizing their ideas. The award was presented by Ognyan Trayanov, chairman of the Board of Directors of BAIT, who awarded the mentors with a voucher for a cybersecurity course.
6 other projects won special awards in this year's edition of the largest Bulgarian student hackathon.
For another year, leading technology companies supported the organization of the student IT competition Hack TUES 6. These are Experian, SAP, TelebidPro, VMware Bulgaria, Astea Solutions, Kaufland IT Hub, Progress, CPD Ltd., Bosch.IO, Creative Assembly Sofia, DevriX, Dopamine, Ubisoft Sofia. Partners of the event this year are the Association for the Development of Sofia, Bulged, Domino’s, COMET ELECTRONICS, Cloud Balkan, Galactic Banitsa, init Lab, IT Step Computer Academy, Ora, Pure Water, Smartcom – Bulgaria AD, Sofia Tech Park, and Telelink Business Services. The media partner of the event was DevStyleR.
