Our Second Annual Islamabad Civic Hackathon brought together 150 civic-minded developers, designers, data analysts, professionals, students, mentors, and innovators at The Hive in Islamabad on the 16th and 17th of July, 2016.
As with our previous four civic hackathons, it is always amazing to see people use their skills and energy to improve their society and the lives of citizens! They formed teams and prototyped web and mobile applications around themes that improve the lives of citizens in Islamabad — education, health, poverty and development, social change, and sustainable city.
The Islamabad Civic Hackathon was conceived as a platform for civic engagement and creation of solutions to meet challenges that Islamabad's citizens face today. The weekend-long event generated a lot of excitement and enthusiasm amongst the diverse group of participants and mentors. With hands-on guidance and mentoring from experts in relevant fields, this turned out to be a learning experience for all involved.
With 24 teams in all, we were especially heartened to see a big turnout of women. Some amazing apps were created during the hackathon, yet the biggest triumph this weekend was the tremendous spirit of civic engagement that all the participants, mentors, judges, and partners demonstrated all weekend.
The Judges' awards went to:
- First Place: Dastaweezat, an app that allows students to apply to multiple universities with a single application form.
- Second Place: Chota Ustaad, an app that connects students with online tutors for easy and improved access to education.
- Third Place went to three teams:
- Bijli Pe Nazar, a solution that collects data on household electricity consumption to enable citizens to take energy efficient decisions
- Shafaaf Voting, a digital voting app to curb riggings in election
- Baagh Baagh, a mobile app for donating and sharing plants from your garden.
- The Audience Favorite award went to No Food Wasted, an online website for diverting food wastage towards feeding poor people.
See all the creative ideas and applications that the participants created at the hackathon: http://isbhacks2016.devpost.com/submissions
The winning teams will receive assistance and guidance from The Nest I/O and Invest2Innovate, in addition to services from Microsoft and Google. They were also fast-tracked through to Invest2Innovate's Slush pitching event on July 29.
Many thanks to our sponsors National Endowment for Democracy, Arbisoft and Telenor Pakistan, and our partners, Media Matters for Democracy, Teradata, Invest2Innovate, Google Developers Group (GDG) Islamabad, Microsoft, The Nest I/O, Global Shapers Islamabad, IRIS.pk, Media Clicks, MediaClub – GIki, Smile Network, Clary Icon, Red Bull, and Second Cup Pakistan.
And a very special thanks to our dear friends at OPEN Islamabad who co-organized the event with Code for Pakistan, and to the incredible team of volunteers at our Islamabad Civic Innovation Lab who did a phenomenal job pulling the event together.
We've loved receiving love notes from those who participated in the Civic Hackathon.
If you'd like to learn more, here's press coverage of the event: