How I went to the Digital Breakthrough Final

I want to share my impression of the All-Russian contest “Digital Breakthrough” . After him, I generally had very good impressions (without any irony), this was my first hackathon in my life and I think that is the last. I was interested to try what it is - tried it - not mine. But first things first.



Around the end of April 2019, I saw an advertisement for the Digital Breakthrough contest for programmers. The structure of the competition is a quarter final, this is an online correspondence testing, a semi-final, this is a full-time regional stage in the hackathon format for 36 hours, then a full-time final is a 48 hour hackathon. The first stage is online testing. There were 50 different topics, you can find it on the project website.

On each topic was 20 minutes, stopping time and going through again, is impossible. It was possible to choose any subject and pass any number of tests, depending on the quality of the passed and on their quantity it depended on whether you get into the semifinals or not. I started taking tests (I didn’t prepare, I was skeptical). I scored about such a sample there (13 out of 20.9 out of 20, 11 out of 20, etc.). Several questions were clearly taken from Wikipedia, roughly speaking directly in the answer options there were designations of variables from formulas (phi, cue, omega), it was very amusing. Some questions were clearly compiled by someone who understood the area. And already at this stage the first embarrassment happened, two of my tests just closed and 0 out of 20 was displayed there. I wrote to the support, I received a quick reply that the application is under consideration. After another 4 days they wrote that the "Administration" allows you to go through these tests again. I tried to do this, but nothing has changed and I still have to hang 0 of 20. I wrote it again to support, they told me to wait, a week later they received test results, where they advised me on information resources that could help me improve my skills. And a month later the answer came that there was a check on my bunny and that they didn’t reveal any errors; I participated from the Moscow region and the semi-final was to be held on July 27. What was my surprise when on July 16 they sent me messages that they still invited me to the full-time stage.





The semifinal began with the fact that after July 16, using the online service of the developers of the “digital breakthrough” contest, it was necessary to assemble your team or join an existing one, the formation was only from those who passed the online test and everyone saw the points that you had for online tests. The team should consist strictly of 3 to 5 people. I didn’t have any acquaintances who passed the test and I began to try to “organize as a team” through all channels, I decided that I would try to join someone. The organizers made an online chat, especially for the Moscow region in VK, where I found the captain of the DevLeaders team, who was engaged in the front (everyone thought up the name of the team as they wanted), at that time there were 2 people, a cap and a designer . I went for the role of Back-end. Next, a person with the experience of a mobile developer joined us, but in fact it was full-stack. We saw each other for the first time at the semifinal in Moscow. We hit the track of public services, the task was to make a prototype analogue of UiPath or BluePrism in 36 hours. The funny thing is that we did it.





With this decision, in our category we took 1st place and went to the finals. Foreign analogues are very expensive (from about 2 million per year, for a limited number of bots). Russian IT company distributors buy such solutions for large businesses, set up turnkey robotics and sell the solution even more expensive, so saving on tools is a good idea. After the hackathon, an expert from our track approached me, he represented the information technology department of the city of Moscow. In fact, he (and in his person DIT) were the directors of the task. He asked if I could scale this project and do the same for the desktop, and was it interesting for me to develop this area. I answered in the affirmative, after which he invited me directly to DIT in order to describe the idea before his boss. At a face-to-face meeting, I was asked how many people are needed for the pilot version and when we can do it, like with the Russian counterparts.





I replied that in 4 people, we will make a fully alpha version like the same electronics in 4 months, but we will need a real business case on which we could fully pilot. They told me ok, we will contact you, no one contacted me anymore and did not even answer my questions in a telegram. Very interesting interaction experience.

The semifinal hackathon ended on July 29, and the final was to begin in Kazan only on September 27-29. In parallel with this, we were invited to the “Digital Valley of Sochi”, as I understand it, just to visit. The trip left a double impression, but it's really cool that you get paid for tickets and accommodation (the trip consisted of one day), but in the main direction, namely, to discuss the layout of our IT product or any other offers - it is very scarce. You can say almost nothing. They asked if we could provide a working layout by mid-October 2019 - the answer was again in the affirmative, while no one contacted us, at the time of writing this article is on October 2nd.



Then the epic with the finale began, I will not criticize the organization here, for sure a lot of people will describe this in more detail, I want to focus on another. I’ll just say that our entire team was offered plane tickets to Kazan and back. Thanks to the organizers! Housing at the time of the finale, each rented by himself. I can only say that the nearest hotel is 20 km from the final venue!



The day before the departure, tracks from the tasks were published (they were broadcast from the stage to open access, so I hope that I’m not violating any rights)





There were about 600 teams in total, and each team could choose its own task. It was the largest hackathon on the planet and it entered the Guinness Book of Records. We selected 17 track from Megaphone. There were 29 teams in our track. It was necessary to make a mobile client for the tenant, to enable him to form an application with the Management Company, then to create a web cabinet on the side of the management company, where it would be possible to monitor business processes. According to the idea of ​​the task, the application should have immediately reached the executor, by classifying it by means of a neural network. We provided such a mechanism, as most teams from our track are sure. Now I want to dwell on the expert advice, experts from the megaphone, walked importantly past our desks and asked questions like “Well, how are you?” If they wanted to show them the details of the implementation or principles of the construction of the neural network, they denied themselves. In general, it was believed that out of all the experts on our track, and there were 15 of them, there was only ONE, ONE man who at least roughly understood what was happening. And only one person at least tried to look at the code! As a result, in pre-defense, more than half of the teams had to drop out. And these people appreciated us! Pre-defense lasted 3 minutes! And another 2 minutes expert questions! Again, I will not say that everything worked for us, and they condemned us. But the assessment criterion was generally incomprehensible and opaque, plus on the pre-defense, the experts did not try to go through the business process of what we prepared, we just checked if you make an application through the phone, it appears in the admin panel of the Criminal Code and checked how the neuron works. All. It seems to me very unfair to have such an approach, after coding for 30+ hours without sleep, and people (I can be wrong, but this is the opinion that has developed) look at what you did and they don’t understand the processes of implementation and elaboration of details! In defense, 11 best teams passed, we went from 11th place, for the work of the prototype we were given 4 out of 10! Without asking a single question that we would not answer or indicating that it did not work for us. We did not appeal only because the data were allegedly not taken into account in the defense, but this turned out to be wrong. The teams acted on the defense in order from 1 place to the last, that is, since we were the last to defend the jury knew that we were the worst in the opinion of experts ! On defense, many teams explicitly said that they arrived with a ready-made solution! We unfortunately sawed everything in these 48 hours. We did not take 1st place. The guys from Krasnoyarsk won, I saw their work - I liked it. I think they are worthy!



I am grateful to my team, which is a product of this competition, we have shown that, if desired, even strangers to each other, can quickly and efficiently make IT products. Therefore, in spite of everything, I had a positive impression of this competition. Thanks to the government for creating a product like this contest.



In the end, I would like to say that the contradictions that are claimed by high ranks from the stands are very frightening. It was at the opening ceremony, Kiriyenko said that he would see that all decisions reached the regions. We were all really obliged to pass all the code on flash drives, but when I tried to explain to the moderator that they would need at least a day to start up the necessary frameworks (I’m not saying that they would need a special one that CAN do this) to collect these sources. We were told that it was necessary, but it became clear to me that in addition to those who took the first places, most of the code would settle in dead weight. The same is true at the regional stage. The task is set - you solve it, nobody needs the result. I want to note that most of the people in this competition really did cool things and it’s amazing how much the country is rich in terms of IT specialists, here’s just the Government-Funds-Responsible Responsible Organizers-Participants chain, which has weak links that complicate the digital breakthrough Russia!