Aleksandra Kubiak, Global project coordinator
Global project coordinator
Cultural manager who coordinated Hacking Heroes across both countries and partner organisations.
Hacking Heroes
A Polish–Portuguese project where young people learned web development by building, solving problems and collaborating across borders.
It ran in Kalisz, Espinho and Porto from 2016 to 2017.
- 2016–2017
- Project duration
- Poland and Portugal
- Kalisz, Espinho and Porto
- Five-day hackathon
- International project finale
- Three languages
- Polish, Portuguese and English
- Erasmus+
- Strategic Partnership for Youth
More than learning code
Hacking Heroes was never just about learning how to code.
Programming became a tool for learning how to find information, solve unfamiliar problems, share responsibility, communicate across languages and turn ideas into digital projects.
The aim was to help young people become independent learners, so they could continue exploring technology long after the workshops ended.
Two cities, one project
The programme was conducted in parallel in Kalisz, Poland, and Espinho, Portugal.
Participants learned in local groups in Kalisz and Espinho while getting to know one another online. Their workshops combined web-development fundamentals with experimentation, project planning and collaborative problem-solving.
The two groups later met in Portugal for the project's international finale.
The Polish group during a workshop session in Kalisz.
The Portuguese group during a workshop session in Espinho.
Five days of building together
In Porto, Polish and Portuguese participants met in person, formed international teams and selected ideas to develop during a five-day hackathon.
They divided responsibilities, worked through technical and communication challenges, tested their ideas and presented the results of their collaboration.
For many participants, it was their first experience of building a digital product in an international team.
Ideas became prototypes
Over several intensive days, participants planned, coded, tested and presented their work. International teams turned ideas developed earlier during the workshops into working prototypes, which they then presented to the whole group.
The people behind Hacking Heroes
Dominik Kościelak, Co-founder and programming teacher
Co-founder and programming teacher
Software engineer and co-initiator of Hacking Heroes, who taught the Polish participant group in Kalisz.
João Matos, Co-founder and programming teacher
Co-founder and programming teacher
Software engineer and co-initiator of Hacking Heroes, who taught the Portuguese participant group in Espinho.
Learning that could be shared
Hacking Heroes was designed to reach beyond the young people taking part in the workshops.
The project developed methodology workshops for teachers and youth workers, together with an educational platform and openly licensed learning materials in Polish, Portuguese and English.
The idea was simple: the methods developed during the project should be reusable by other people teaching programming.
A project documented from the inside
The photographs and videos preserved in this archive capture different moments from the life of the project.
Together, they show not only what happened, but also how people learned, collaborated and worked through problems together.
Hackathon 27/04 - 02/05/2017
Documented at the time
Contemporary coverage followed Hacking Heroes from recruitment and workshops through to the international meeting in Portugal.
Built to help young people learn, create and work together through programming.