From March 9 to 13, 2026, the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice (specifically the MEVPIS FROV workplace in Vodňany) hosted the second international hackathon of the KreativEU alliance. Under the title "Smart Archives – Unlocking Knowledge with AI", students, academics, and creatives from 11 European universities gathered to jointly seek innovative ways to modernize cultural and archival heritage.
The event was organized by the Faculty of Agriculture and Technology (Jana Klicnarová, Radim Remeš) and the Faculty of Theology (Centre for Applied Philosophy, Daniel Novotný, Emanuele Lacca) of the University of South Bohemia.
The program aimed to design technological solutions that would use artificial intelligence to make historical materials and archives accessible to the general public. Before the competition started, participants formed teams according to predetermined rules – each team had to consist of at least 3 different universities, which ensured maximum diversity of ideas and cultural exchange across Europe.
Then the 24-hour competition marathon began, during which all teams worked diligently on their ideas and projects. They tried to devise and implement systems to make the forgotten treasures of archives and museums accessible to the public. Projects were developed under the supervision of international mentors from partner institutions (e.g., from Germany, Portugal, Sweden, and Turkey). After a full day and night of work, the teams presented their projects to an expert jury composed of representatives from academia and business (e.g., CzechInvest, ČEZ, and the budejovice.ai initiative). The Vodňany hackathon was also announced as a Seed Funding Competition, meaning that the best ideas have a chance to receive support for their further development.
The winning team consisted of Chukwunyere Anozie (Faculty of Agriculture and Technology, USB), Fabio D'Antonio (University of Camerino), Kyrylo Yesypenko (Opole University of Technology), Nick Belterman (Breda University of Applied Sciences), and Yurii Holovko (Opole University of Technology). Their project's motto was "Let's make history discoverable," and the central theme was "Voices of War." In their project, they presented an idea and system for digitizing and using AI to voice letters from war stored in archives.
Students from Vodňany Grammar School also attended the final presentations of all teams, allowing them to witness international cooperation in English, during which new modern technologies were created over the course of 24 hours.
The hackathon winners also took home valuable prizes from the University of South Bohemia – laptop backpacks, hoodies with the hackathon logo, Trezor crypto wallets, wireless speakers, chargers, and power banks.
All participants also had the opportunity to explore interesting places outside the competition itself during the five-day intensive program. They visited the WEDOS data center in Hluboká nad Vltavou and completed a themed escape game in the Gelasio Vodňanský Library.
Other KreativEU alliance hackathons that students from all member universities, including the USB, can participate in:
- May 4–8, 2026 in Stockholm, Sweden
- May 26–28, 2026 in Svishtov, Bulgaria
- June 30 – July 2, 2026 in Camerino, Italy
- October 21–23, 2026 in Breda, Netherlands
