25. 11. 2025
Author: Zuzana Novotná
HackaTEEN won 3rd place in the eGovernment The Best 2025 competition
HackaTEEN won third place in the eGovernment The Best 2025 competition, confirming the importance and quality of activities that systematically involve children and young people in shaping the future of cities and municipalities. The award in the regional projects category demonstrates that the participation of the younger generation in addressing public issues is fundamental to modern, open, and innovative public administration.
Egovernment The Best is an annual competition organized by Egovernment Magazine that collects and awards the best projects in public administration digitization in the Czech Republic. The competition serves as an inspirational platform: it allows the presentation of projects implemented during the year—whether by authorities, regions, municipalities, or central institutions—and demonstrates how the digitization of public administration can improve services for citizens. Overall, the Egovernment The Best competition is an important initiative that supports innovation in public administration and serves as an inspiration for other institutions seeking to digitize their processes. The award ceremony for this year's competition took place on Monday, November 24, at the Municipal House in Prague.
But how can we motivate young people to generate ideas, seek solutions, and collaborate with adults? Youth participation is no longer just a buzzword. It is an effective way for cities, schools, and institutions to better understand their residents' needs and to open decision-making to those who will shape our environment in the future. When young people are given space, they can come up with ideas that are practical, bold, and often very surprising.
This is the principle behind HackaTEEN. Its goal is to offer pupils and students a real opportunity to solve specific problems in cities and municipalities, work together in teams, listen to the needs of others, and learn to present their proposals. This experience awakens young people's sense of responsibility for the place where they live and shows them that their voice really matters.
The next HackaTEEN will take place on June 2–3, 2026, at the URBIS Smart Cities Meetup trade fair in Brno. For more information, visit www.hackateen.eu.