The Finals of the National HISTHACK Competition Are Behind Us. We Know the Winning Teams

Until October 12, teams from secondary schools across Poland submitted their applications. From all the submitted works, the jury selected the 16 best, which qualified for the finals. The finals lasted from November 4 until today—November 6. We now know the winning teams of the second edition of the HISTHACK competition. We thank all participants for taking part. It was a wonderful adventure.

Announcement of the Final Results

Sixteen teams competed in programming, planning, and presenting a solution to one of the proposed challenges. Participants had 16 hours to work—eight hours each on the first and second day. On the third day, they presented their projects before the jury. The culmination of the finals came at 2 p.m., when the jury announced the winning teams.

The jury consisted of:

Zbigniew Bujak
Barbara Giża
Krzysztof Papliński
Sebastian Górkiewicz
Justyna Orłowska
Magdalena Hajduk
Adrianna Paradowska
Wojciech Turek

Here are the winners of the second edition of the HISTHACK competition:

1st place: the team from the Hipolit Cegielski School of Communications in Poznań for the project “A Century of Gdynia”
2nd place: the team from the Mechanical and Electrical School Complex in Tarnów for the project “Four Faces of the PRL”
3rd place: the team from the Stefan Rowecki “Grot” School of Economics in Opole for the project “HistOn”

The awards were presented to the winners by Deputy President of the Institute of National Remembrance Dr. Karol Polejowski and Director of the IPN New Technologies Bureau, Magdalena Hajduk.

The remaining finalists, listed beyond the podium, were teams from:

IT School Complex named after Gen. Józef Hauke-Bosak in Kielce (“Arcana Varsoviae”)
SCI IT Technical School in Szczecin (“Guardians of Heritage”)
Non-public General Secondary School named after Dr. Wanda Błeńska in Kowale (“SeaGdynia”)
Technical and General Education School Complex in Kędzierzyn-Koźle (“Silence over Raszowa”)
Technical Educational Institutions named after Gen. Władysław Sikorski in Częstochowa (“HistScope”)
Mechanical and Electrical School Complex in Tarnów (“Postwar CHAOS”)
Technical School Complex named after Tadeusz Kościuszko in Leżajsk (“Return to the Ruins”)
Technical School Complex named after Maria Skłodowska-Curie in Puławy (“HistApp”)
Regional Center for Vocational Education in Biłgoraj (“SetnaFala”)
Technical School Complex named after E. Kwiatkowski in Grodzisk Wielkopolski (“Queue for Dreams”)
District Secondary School Complex named after Jerzy Siwiński in Legionowo (“Poland’s Defenders”)
Mechanical and Electrical School Complex in Ełk (“When Images Tell the Truth”)
School Complex named after Stanisław Staszic in Staszów (“Life in the PRL”)

Presentation of the Silver Medal Reipublicae Memoriae Meritum to Justyna Orłowska

This decoration is awarded to individuals who show exceptional dedication to the good of the Polish Nation and support the educational, scientific, and publishing activities of the Institute of National Remembrance in preserving the memory of events and heroes from the years 1917–1990. During the final ceremony, Deputy President of the IPN Dr Karol Polejowski presented the Reipublicae Memoriae Meritum Medal to Justyna Orłowska—Polish manager in the govtech, edutech, and creative sectors; activist promoting the multicultural heritage of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and strengthening ties among the Polish diaspora worldwide.

HISTHACK Concluded. Thank You to All Participating Teams

We warmly thank the mentors, jury members, team supervisors, and all participants. The second edition of the competition will stay with us for a long time. So many memories, smiles, positive competition, photos, and unexpected situations… The competition offered benefits not only to the participants but also to us, the organizers. Thanks to events like this, immersive historical education becomes reality and technological barriers are overcome.

The three-day finals were filled with teamwork, development of soft skills, sharpening of programming abilities, and learning how to present and speak publicly. We believe that every participant learned something new, and that working on practical challenges gave them their first experience with real business, social, and scientific problems.

Above all, we thank the youth teams. Thanks to your presence, your courage to express your opinions, and your participation in the competition, we now better understand what solutions you need, what tools you enjoy using, and how you want to learn. It is also a lesson for us and a test of our own knowledge and skills. It is a shared experience through which we learn from one another.

Once again, we congratulate the winners and thank all teams for taking part in this unforgettable event.