The results of Newsmatics’ first Hackathon!
Newsmatics Hackathon Showcases Student Innovation in Brno
Newsmatics hosted its first Hackathon in Brno, Czechia, where students tackled data analytics, fake news detection, and market analysis in a 24-hour challenge. Held at Masaryk University, 10 teams turned raw news data into innovative digital tools.
The winning team, "AE," took home the grand prize of 25,000 CZK for their innovative financial market tracking app, which analyzed connections between news events and price fluctuations.
With over 40 participants, the hackathon fostered an atmosphere of creativity, teamwork, and problem-solving. Other standout projects included trend analysis for marketing and a fact-checking tool for verifying public statements. Judges praised the participants' ingenuity, and Newsmatics is already planning a follow-up event in 2026.
Congratulations to all teams and a big thank you to all participants, mentors, judges, the Faculty of Informatics and KYPO, Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, for making Newsmatics Hackathon 2025 a success! Check out the event photos below to see the excitement firsthand!
Hackathon winner: AE
- Team leader: Tomáš Hutňan
- Team: Dávid Kepič, Adrián Mikolaj, Robert Hudák.
- Main topic: Data Digest
- Product: Financial market tracking app
- Aim: Show connections between events - news and rapid price change
2nd place: NewsDecoded
- Team leader: Adam Karásek
- Team: Michal Kišš, Lukáš Galeta.
- Main topic: Trend Analysis
- Product: Trend and sentiment analysis
- Aim: Analyzing the occurrence trend and sentiment of keywords in the news focussing on commercial products which could be used for evaluation of marketing for companies.
3rd place: Overfitting spaghetti coders
- Team leader: Jan Klusáček
- Team: Michal Titl, Štěpán Vondráček, Stanislav Zámečník.
- Main topic: Protection Against Misinformation
- Product: Tool for fact checking
- Aim: Tool that enables fact checking based on user input - person and question. User can validate statements of public figures from news history.
Check out our photos
Two of the judges, Patrik Rak and Marko Rehacek.
Jakub Leps introduces the Newsmatics group.
Jakub Leps, Chief Content Officer for Newsmatics, explains the Hackathon rules.
David Rothstein, Newsmatics CEO opens the Hackathon.
Hackathon participants.
Hackathon participants.
Hackathon participants.
Patrik Rak watching a presentation.
Hackathon participants.
Hackathon participants.
Some of the Newsmatics mentors and volunteers.
David Rothstein and Tomas Licak.
Hackathon participants.
Hackathon participants.
Jan Zikan, Newsmatics VP of Engineering judging a presentation.
David Rothstein, Newsmatics CEO, signing diplomas.
Delicious food served throughout the event.
Hackathon participants.
Hackathon participants.
Hackathon participants.
Hackathon participants.
Hackathon participants.
Hackathon participants.
Hackathon participants.
Hackathon participants.
Hackathon participants.
Notable mentions:
- Team leader: Jakub Skopal
- Team: Maxmilian Petrov, Peter Farkaš, Lukáš Dadák, Jakub Šindler.
- Main topic: Data Digest
- Product: A time map of how the most relevant topics of each day spread in the USA
- Aim: View the spread of most relevant topics in USA through time.
- Team leader: Martin Tuček
- Team: Adam Džadoň, Michal Jakubík, Tomas Pavlik.
- Main topic: Create a Tool for Online Investigative Journalists
- Product: Tool for Online Investigative Journalists focusing on keyword relationships (e.g. name: Elon Musk, company: OpenAI).
- Aim: See relationships between articles and how articles about entities are influenced.
- Team leader: Antonín Kadrmas
- Team: Lukáš Gorazd Hrodek, Vojtěch Šanda.
- Main topic: Data Digest
- Product: Financial market tracking app
- Aim: Show connections between events - news and rapid price changes.
- Team leader: Erik Čapkovič
- Team: Lukáš Medovič, Rastislav Kollár, Lukáš Denkócy, Peter Štefunko.
- Main topic: Content Discovery
- Product: Semantic search for articles with more detailed classifications.
- Aim: To build a new search engine along with the website for embedding semantic search of articles with more detailed classifications.
- Team leader: David Kajan
- Team: Jan Brázda, Roman Zadorožny.
- Main topic: Predictive Analysis and Forecasting
- Product: Analyzing previous results of US elections and predicting results of upcoming elections based on media coverage.
- Aim: Elections analysis.
- Team leader: Šimon Drgoň
- Team: Miriam Šventová, Danka Jakúbková, Jan Šťovíček.
- Main topic: Trend Analysis
- Product: A tool that shows you the evolution of media opinion over time and space.
- Aim: View the evolution of media opinion about the war in Ukraine over time and space.
- Team leader: Jakub Svoboda
- Team: Pavla Bártová, Akira Schenk.
- Main topic: Content discovery
- Product: Karlíkův radar
- Aim: Chrome extension that tries to non-invasively and intelligently inform users about the article's bias and publisher credibility while browsing the site, and then recommend other articles based on the data collected from user behaviour. It is also intended to track and proactively recommend articles containing sudden changes/new information on topics of interest to the user.
Want to learn more about the event?
Want to see what information the participants were give before the hackathon? Click below and see!
Event details