Blink meets hackers from all over the world who have been invited by the European Parliament to take part in a 24-hour coding marathon.

Backstage: EU Hackathon

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/15806724/j001-0043-en_mf.srt

and behind me is the launch  of the first EU Hackathon.

A 24-hour marathon for hackers.  What on earth is going on here?

No, these people are not hackers  in terms of crackers.

Hackers here are people who develop  things, like coders, programmers,

and crackers are the ones  who crack codes or IT systems.

We have many reports on the new digital  era and the internet world, and so on.

Hackers, for example, help us  to find out where systems are weak

and where there could be  improvements of systems

and there we can help them  and learn from them.

Here's the IT unit where the hackers  are going to spend the next 24 hours

with everything they need  to develop new web applications.

A few instructions from a specialist  and they're off!

Hi, what are you lot up to?  -We are doing the project planning.

We are marking out the steps  that each of us has done

and we are trying to set deadlines  so that we use our time well

OK, I'll let you crack on. Which of  the two challenges have you chosen?

what the blocking of content  on the internet looks like.

Some countries block access  to certain sites.

We want to show that it's a big problem.

We want to show that this problem  really exists and isn't something small.

We want to show it in a way  that's easy to understand for all.

What will your censorship  detector tool be like?

We will create a graph, so people can  click on it and see more information

when they need it without  going through all these lines.

The tool that I am making  is a map of the whole world

that shows how well the internet works in all  the different countries all over the world.

What's the goal?  -The goal is to show Parliament

where the internet is good  and where it's bad so they can work to fix it.

Go! Lines, code, numbers...  and all that for 24 hours straight!

I'm not crazy, I'm logging off.  See you tomorrow.

Hello, I'm Ben from China.  I've been here now for more than 20 hours.

I'm pretty exhausted  but I'm quite excited

because in a few minutes  we'll have some presentations.

Yeah, we're super busy. We're into  the last stages of development so...

Three... two... one... stop!  It's time to hand out the Parliament prizes.

5000 euros for the two best hackers,  not bad!

The Hackathon has given us two new  applications for more web transparency.

and another to measure  internet network performance.

Tools for citizens and the Parliament.  Thanks, hackers! Bye!