#BankofGreeceDatathon2023  – The 1st National Open Data Competition of Greece was completed

On 22-23 April 2023, the Bank of Greece and the Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS) jointly conducted the 1st National Open Data Competition “Bankofgreece Datathon 2023” at Innovathens (Technopolis City of Athens).

  • It was an open innovation initiative of the Bank of Greece – an open data pioneer among national central banks – in cooperation and with the support of the GFOSS, aiming to galvanise an innovation ecosystem that brings together stakeholders from academia, business, public administration and the civil society with a view to the development of original applications using open data provided by the Bank of Greece, along with other available data regardless of origin.

PROMETHEUS team members participated in the event through mentoring and other support activities. 
In particular Mr Harris Alexopoulos (GFOSS – Working Group on Open Government and Open Data & Senior Researcher at Information Systems Lab, Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering, University of the Aegean) supported the organisation of the event and provided key mentoring support to the participants. Mr Georgios Karamanolis (CTO/CIO at Crowdpolicy) also participated as a mentor to the Datathon. Overall, Crowdpolicy was a key supporter of the event. 

The Datathon attracted mainly teams from academia and the Greek startup community, as well as independent professionals.
Participants were invited to design and develop original applications offering novel solutions that will generate value added and promote digitalisation in key sectors of the economy and society. Priority was given to the real estate market, tourism, and banking and monetary analysis.

In his welcome address, the Director of the Bank of Greece Statistics Department, Mr Nikolaos Tsaveas, stressed that the Bank of Greece is an open data pioneer among the national central banks of the Eurosystem, having launched its Open Data Portal as early as in 2018, and noted that the participation of so many teams “encourages us to step up with even greater resolve the Bank’s efforts to put to use its wealth of data”.

On his part, GFOSS Director-General Mr Alexandros Melidis highlighted the importance of the Datathon, noting that “the value of data is demonstrated not only by their highest technical standards but, above all, by their reuse and the solutions they can afford to the economy, citizens and businesses”.

The winners were announced by a three-member jury, comprising Mr Spyridon Gardikiotis, Deputy Director of the Bank of Greece Organisation Department, Mr Iraklis Varlamis and Mr Ioannis Vogiatzis, board members of GFOSS.

The three prizewinning teams were the following:

The prizes were awarded by Bank of Greece Deputy Governor Mr Theodore Pelagidis. The two first winning teams came for the University of the Aegean students network. 

The Bank of Greece and Open Data

The Bank of Greece builds on the innovative potential of open data, boasting an Open Data Portal (Open Data Portal) since 2018. The Portal makes available to researchers and the wider public statistical datasets in machine-readable format, certified by the Open Data Institute. The Bank’s Open Data are compiled and published in conformity with international open data standards.

To find out more, visit the Datathon microsite.

Original Post: https://www.bankofgreece.gr/en/news-and-media/press-office/news-list/news?announcement=0287c708-017f-4ff0-80b0-b9e205fc55f4