Description
25 years after the fall of communism, civic engagement in social change in Central and Eastern European countries is still relatively low. At the same time, the region is adopting online realities at an astonishing rate with Facebook penetration rates exceeding 25% of the population across the region. While numerous smaller initiatives grow across the region and engage citizens in change, they remain largely unorganized, sporadic and poorly understood by civil society organizations that have vast knowledge about local challenges. The adoption of social technologies offers a unique opportunity for individuals to connect and communicate. As they begin to communicate their ideas to make change, groups begin collaborating informally in offline action – mirroring classic grassroots civil society development. The Restart Slovakia Challenge offers an opportunity to demonstrate commitment to building a stronger country, to connect with creative social innovators, Slovakia’s most talented IT&C communities, the general public, businesses and NGOs. The Challenge will engage hundreds of citizens, NGOs and IT&C professionals in finding solutions to social justice issues and a creative process leading to web-based platforms aimed at engaging citizens in changes they find meaningful. The Challenge will harness IT&C community and social innovators to create platforms for social change. The Jury of the Restart challenge will choose 8 best projects. Project teams of these projects will be invited to the Hack Camp that will bring the finalists together with volunteer programmers, web-designers, civil society activists, marketers, etc. for a 2 day Development Hack Camp. Direct beneficiaries are primarily NGOs, citizens, who are IT&C professionals, students and active individuals.
Summary of project results
Restart Slovakia 2014 organised a contest which not only reflected the activity of individuals in the form of their projects in competition, but also the willingness to promote these initiatives, also by a financial donation. We created a crowd funding platform StartLab that will now serve to the target groups of ReStart project for the whole year. Goals were met and sustainability of the outcomes was ensured by providing financial resources for the implementation of final projects in several ways. In addition, we provided to ReStart finalist a motivational and instructive presentations at the event Hack Camp as well as a training in project management, communication and marketing. The aim of the project was to support the best projects capable of bringing social changes thanks to the use of modern technologies. At least 3 best projects resulting in at least 3 functional solutions should receive a financial grant. 16 project joined the competition, from which the jury selected eight. The finalists competed through a crowd-funding campaigns on the newly created platform called StartLab, where they were trying to gain individual donors as well as funding for their projects. The finalists with the highest number of donors were then rewarded by financial or non-financial resources for the implementation of their projects.
Summary of bilateral results