19. December 2020.
The first Solution Lab by the Independent Journalists' Association of Vojvodina happened at the beginning of December. The idea behind the competition was to connect journalists and the IT sector, in order to come up with original approaches to solve challenges of modern times: a growing number of citizen data on digital platforms and, at the same time, lack of transparency of institutions.
The hackathon lasted for three days and the task was to come up with a solution for one of the assigned topics:
1. Open source data and Covid19
2. Free access to information and user data privacy
3. Source credibility
4. Misinformation and public data
5. Environmental protection
Our three member team tried to battle the problem of inconsistent air pollution measurements reported by different sources. Many companies and institutions supply air quality analysis, either as raw data, some kind of calculated coefficient, visualization or a mobile app. The problem we identified was that they don't follow same standards, and give often contradicting and misleading information. We compared the data from several sources and analyzed how and why the different results are obtained.
Our prototype was interesting enough to secure us third place, and a possibility of getting funded, to expand the idea and further the cooperation between Datoris and Serbian Journalists!
We congratulate all contestants, especially the winners, who will try to battle fake news by applying sentiment analysis. Big thanks goes to the Independent Journalists' Association of Vojvodina, members of the jury, and the US Embassy in Serbia who sponsored the event, for the opportunity, and the prize.
You can read more about the contest here (in Serbian).