The first hackathon in notariat ever - “Go2SmartNotary”
In 2018, sworn notaries of Latvia celebrated its centenary and the twenty fifth anniversary of the re-established notariate by participating in “Go2SmartNotary” hackathon organized by the Latvian Council of Sworn Notaries. Notaries, as well as active generators of ideas from various areas (representatives of start-ups, students, scientists and artists, engineers and athletes, as well as all interested parties) were invited to participate. In total, 11 ideas were submitted, of which 4 made to the finals. During 48 hours of intensive work together with mentors they were developed as far as real prototypes. In total, 55 participants contributed to their development.
During the last few years, Latvian notariate has introduced several IT solutions that make it stand out among other European notariates. Since July, notarial acts can be performed remotely, and the Latvian notariate is the first to offer such services not only in the Baltic region, but also in entire Europe.
To develop ideas that promote further modernization, the Latvian Council of Sworn Notaries organized “Go2SmartNotary” hackathon in September 2018.
Hackathon (Hackathon = Hacking Marathon) is a three-day innovation event, where stakeholders from various areas participate, creating inter-sectoral teams and jointly working on new ideas or improving the current products or services. Hackathon ideas were developed together with mentors in a shared working environment, presenting a plan for their implementation to jurors and the audience at the end of the event.
The selected ideas were developed non-stop for 48 hours by their respective teams. They could entail development of new tools, as well as new services for business development, design, programming, jurisprudence, marketing, etc. During the development process, the teams were helped by mentors: experts and well-known professionals. At the end, the teams presented their results to the jury.
Winners of the “Go2SmartNotary” hackathon received EUR 1000 and further support from mentors to implement their ideas.
During the first hackathon of the Latvian notariate, an idea about quick identification of individuals won. The respective team that consisted of notaries and IT experts developed a software that within 10 seconds of capturing an identification document by a camera during an online consultation could extract data about the respective individual from all possible registries and databases. Thus, time spent on technical aspects could be reduced for a notary and his/her customer to focus on the actual transaction. The jury found this idea and its presentation the most successful, as this tool would be very important for sworn notaries, and it can be practically implemented. Furthermore, it would be useful to other bodies that need to identify individuals. Currently, this idea is studied and analysed in detail, and its implementation potential is also assessed.
Special prize of the notariate was awarded to a customer due diligence tool: a user-friendly and trustworthy supporting app to assess the money laundering and terrorist financing risk posed by customers of sworn notaries. This solution would make customer due diligence automatic and create customer profiles that would be available in one single system. Thus, other notaries and bodies signed up as users would not have to repeat the due diligence process. When introduced, this solution would also be useful to other bodies like the Register of Enterprises, advocates, realtors, etc. Furthermore, it would also be of interest to notariates of other countries. Currently, the team that has been transformed into an official working group is implementing this project.
The third idea developed during the Go2SmartNotary hackathon was related to a neutral immovable property platform for market participants. It was envisaged as a user-friendly site where buyers of immovable property would have access to reliable and detailed information about the respective property, thus avoiding unpleasant surprises, while sellers would benefit from a simpler process, which is fragmented, time consuming and expensive at the moment.
The fourth finalist of the hackathon entailed digitalization of inheritance process, incl. automatic classification of heirs, automatic search for stakeholders and calculation of inheritance shares, digital processing of the inheritance process and inclusion of creditor claims, as well as automatic processing of inheritance by will and opening of an inheritance case, and automation of heirless processes. The main benefit of this system would be a more convenient and quicker inheritance process. Furthermore, by reducing grounds for potential litigation, courts would be freed for other cases. The heirless process would also be made automatic, so that the state could receive what is due quickly and easily to save public funds and time of public officials.