Czech Republic is still shaking off 45 years of communism. The era when politicians dictated people what to think. Since every disobedience was punished, people were still afraid to speak up even decades after the revolution. And such environment is great for corruption. Ministry of Transportation made an extremely overpriced contract to build an e-commerce platform worth 16000000 EUR without an open bid. The anticorruption group Znamkamarada decided to act. They organized a public anticorruption hackathon to build this platform during 48 hours for free. And that put the whole country and the faith in democracy back on its feet.

Politicians in the Czech Republic got used to think that they can get away with almost everything. The last drop on the list of corruption scandals was an overpriced e-shop for a highway vignettes. The contract for Asseco group to build an e-commerce platform (for selling highway vignettes) was worth 16 000 000 EUR without an open bid. This extremely overpriced contract got attention to anticorruption group called Znamkamarada who made an open call and organized anticorruption hackathon. They invited programmers from whole country to build the e-commerce platform in 48h and for free, in order to show how ridiculous the overpriced contract is. And they story spread like fire through the whole country - it was for a week topic number one in news. And everybody wanted to/had to show which side he stands.

The creative idea was to fight the corrupted system very straightforward and very public and visible way. We could not stand up to the government as individuals, but as a legitimate representatives of public. We organized Anticorruption Hackathon and made an open call to IT specialists from whole country. They could join and create the platform for free during 48 hours. 194 coders came to make this happen. Whole country was watching and government had to react.

Tomas Vondracek (representing Znamkamarada group) made a call to action via LinkedIn post as a reaction to overpriced contract. He made an open call for volunteers from IT and announced to build together a solution to show that 16 000 000 EUR is ridiculously overpriced.

His post got attention to thousands of relevant people from the field, travelled across other social network such as Facebook and as a snowball was getting on board more and more people. And moreover, it attracted the media and attention of Prime Minister who called for a meeting. Politicians in the Czech Republic never talked to ordinary people before, talking into consideration their opinions. Znamkamarada became very strong power that poeople could finally identify with.

The anticorruption hackathon Znamkamarada challenged the suspicious and overpriced contract for 16 000 000 EUR to build an e-commerce platform (for selling highway vignettes).

To prove their point, they made an open call for IT volunteers to build the system by themselves in 48 hours and for free.

Prime Minister asked for a meeting.

The political opposition attended the event.

The story attracted all media and therefore the whole country was nonstop watching the whole event and the events following.

Prime minister called for meeting.

The overpriced contract was cancelled.

Minister of Transportation was fired.

New law for It contracts was created.

Similar activities from another groups challenging other issues followed.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook fans in the first 5 days - 2 500

Impressions in the first 5 days - 1 000 000 ?Daily reach during the campaign - 100 000 on average

Reach on the Livestream video from the end of the Hackathon - 55 000

Engagement rate of Facebook posts - over 10 %

Maximum engagement rate - 28 %

Interactions in Total - 14 500 (on average 3 000 per day)

WEB PAGE Ferznamka.cz

Almost 300 000 unique visits of the web page www.ferznamka.cz.

?Over 32 000 placed orders of the Fair Vignette.

More than CZK 67 000 raised for the charitable purpose.