International Hackathon Competition for Secondary School Students on the Theme of Smart City Development

Patronage of the Czech participation in the Spanish-Czech Challenge HackaTEEN 2026:

Libor Sečka, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Spain

Competition Briefs and rules

Spanish-Czech Challenge HACKATEEN 2026 – CHALLENGES 

Choose one of the three challenges and propose a solution for your city or region:

1. Who is your city missing? Whose or which needs is your city overlooking?

Look at your city as a place that should work for diverse groups of people and the entire community.

Identify a need, a problem, or a group of residents that is currently insufficiently taken into account, and propose a change that will improve urban life for more people.  

2. Is your city ready? Is your city prepared for what lies ahead?

Cities are changing. More extreme heat, droughts, torrential rainfall and changes in transport, energy and how people live are on the way.

Identify a challenge your city should start preparing for today and propose a solution that will help it function better in the future.

3. How can your city work better? What could work more smartly and simply in your city?

Consider how people use their city every day: how they move around, access services and use streets, public places or municipal infrastructure.

Identify something that does not currently work well, is unnecessarily complex or inconvenient, or fails to realise its potential, and propose a better solution.

What do we expect from your solution?

We are not looking for just an idea for a one-off event, a meeting, a campaign, or a new poster.

We seek a solution that makes a genuine difference to how a city operates or to the daily lives of its residents. 

Therefore, your solution must:

• address a genuine problem or need – what is it?

• benefit the wider community, not just an individual – who is it for?

• bring about change that can work in the long term – is it sustainable?

• have a clear path to implementation – is it realistic and feasible?

• demonstrate how it is new or better than what currently exists – is it smart and innovative?

The solution can be technological or non-technological. It may involve a new way of delivering a service, a change to public space, a new system, a rule, a physical solution, a community model, or a combination of approaches.

Finally, ask yourselves:

If our idea were actually implemented, what would be visibly different in the city one year from now?

The winners will be selected by expert judges, whom we will introduce to you—along with the criteria—no later than at the opening of HackaTEEN.

Urbis Challenge HackaTEEN 2026 Competition rules