Vunki Mano co-creation hackathon in South Estonia

Vunki Mano co-creation hackathon took place on 23-24. September in Värska, which is a small town close to Estonian southern border. Pre-event possible local problems were proposed and a public notice to join the teams looking for solutions posted. There were 9 teams and over a hundred people took part over the two days.

The hackathon is well known locally and was organised for 6th year in a row. This year was a bit different: previously everybody has been welcome to raise the issues to be solved together, however this year local councils took lead proposing the topics and called interested parties to join. This was done in order to give an ownership to the problems and to make sure proposed solutions were followed through.

Many of the raised topics were addressing the issues of shrinking and aging population in South Estonia in innovative ways. The winning idea looked for solutions raise the effectiveness and quality of education in small schools in Setumaa. Special award was given to a working group looking to improve the cooperation between school support staff and youth workers outside the school system. One of the other notable teams looked into streamlining the complaints raised by residents to the local councils to one channel or database, making sure the information would be in one place and followed up. Mentoring session was awarded to Tagurpidi (Up-Side-Down) Antsla, which plans to market their small town in a fun way.

KiNESIS awarded a virtual training session to the Võru Council team, who plans to raise the profile of the town by making it the most child friendly place in Estonia. Võru already hosts an annual Children’s Festival, but is looking to make a more strategic plan and to take a wider approach involving different interest groups.