How would the roost boost? The difficulty in living from one paycheck to the next is simply death to any organization, even the country at large, with nothing else to think about except the need to suffice the stomach and the help’s pay. There is very little, under these circumstances, when employees, or even for that matter, the students living from test score to the next, would risk it all to land them with an idea that could outlast the coming generations.
A Hackathon, as it says on the Code for Pakistan website, a self-styled “A New Kind of Public Service – By the People, For the People, For the 21st Century,” comes as an opportunity in these sorry state of affairs. A Civic Hackathon helps in designing and building prototypes of web, mobile, or SMS applications that address civic problems. We know it contains the word ‘hack,’ but easy now, that has got nothing to do with anything requiring your utmost dread. Conceptually, a hacker is anybody with an understanding of systems well enough to work around the bends; so too, the civic hacker. He takes time out to understand a system – in the social context, of course, and looks to see what fault lines lay there – thus, hacking into it and making it right, folks.
Also, a time to mingle, eat the free food – not free for the sponsors, mind you – a Hackathon is the carnival for adults that would bring food to the body, and life to the soul – bringing together the Legos of the mind into making a car, house, whatever it “put itself to work towards”! Yes, Legos, like the good ol’ days, we hear you say?
Sheba Najmi, dumped Yahoo (what a gutsy thing to do, isn’t that right?) all to help the country move forward, at the time when Code for America came out in the country. Using the creative problem-solving techniques she learnt while at Stanford, and at Code for America she came back, huddled together with like minds and started “Code for Pakistan” along the same lines as its American counterpart. Flitting her time between San Francisco and Pakistan on Google Hangouts and the plane, Sheba and her team of self-motivated individuals, are, it seems chiseling the Parbat, inching slowly to the top.
With events such as Fellowship Program, Civic Hackathons and Code for All Brigades, happening throughout the year, Code for Pakistan, in partnership with CSO, IDG Pakistan, recently hosted Civic Hackathons, one in Lahore at Lahore University of Management Sciences’ School of Science and Engineering, and another in Peshawar at University of Engineering and Technology, both held earlier this year.
The Supermen…
Winners:
- Lahore Civic Hackathon
Talha; A student at Science at Comsat Institute of Information Technology
Best Open Source Redeployment: CiviSpot
Idea loved: Online non-emergency problem-solving hub
“Our Civic Hackathon project is a citizen reporting system called ‘The Civics Report.’ The idea of this project was to allow everyone to report non-emergency issues to a proper, centralized hub where people in the position could solve them. We added some additional features for detail. This service makes use of the open OPEN311 system.”
- Raza Jaffery; Owner of a mobile apps development and web development companies;
(2nd place)
Winning app name: Blood for life
Winning idea: Blood Donation App/SMS/Website service
“The idea was borrowed from a blood donation website of a friend’s that I wanted to see revamped. With many issues related to raising blood – a pertinent problem in this part of the world – there had to be an easier way other wait for loved ones to die out waiting for a donor to be kind. A friend had already been operating “bloodforpakistan.com.pk” which got hacked and it is why I wanted to revive it with the technology now available – that being SMS and app, to make it both web and mobile – friendly”
- Shoib Ahmed, Graduate from Computer Sciences from Government College University Lahore (3rd place)
Winning app name: whichBus
Winning idea: Bus Routes (Timings/Destinations)
“As a new entrant into the Walled city, not knowing the bus routes around the city was a huge blow. Knowing fully well, the challenges of an outsider, with this Hackathon opportunity, I knew that if I was facing this problem, there were others like me as well. The idea for an online transport information system, where if anybody wanted to search for different bus timings within the city, could find an online platform palatable to their liking, is where the idea for the app came from. ”
- Peshawar Civic Hackathon
Sarmad Sajjad; student at Ghulam Ishaq khan Institute (1st place)
Winning app name: Smart Life Saver
Winning idea: accident reporting/ rescuing app
“The idea revolved around helping save lives by creating an app for Android around accident reporting. It was a mobile app that upon the detection of car collision would send a text message with the GPS location to the nearest rescue centers. The person, sitting on the other end with the monitoring system would receive the SMS on a computer and dispatch an ambulance search and rescue service promptly to the scene.”
- Ebadullah; graduate of COMSATS (3rd place)
Winning app name: ‘Rehnuma’
Winning idea: Governmental procedures on SMS
“We wanted to provide an information portal to the people of Peshawar so that they could get information to vital governmental procedures such as making legal documents, birth certificates, domicile, forms etc. They don’t have any platforms from where they can get information from different governmental departments with their respective contact numbers, along with their locations. That’s why we developed a system, Rehnuma, which allows people to get any required information on their cell phones via SMS.
The Kryptonites Detected in this Smallville
Technologically advanced; benefits not trickling down
Amongst the many good things about the venture Hackathon helps in budding linkages, as shared by Talha, how he was without a team, but showing up and gaining exposure, helped him form a number of significant relationships, Also, it helps scout for new recruits, as was used in the case for Raza Jaffery, who felt that the two and a half days spent at the Hackathon would “easily exceed 100 thousand dollars worth of commercial value”
Civic Hackathon’s Future in Pakistan
In a country riddled with so many problems, as it is, and interesting as Sheba notes – a degree holder in ‘Symbolic Systems’ from Stanford, a degree which allows her to understand the person and the computer in their entirety – the 23 programs that were developed at the Hackathon, so says Sarmad Sajjad, too, from the Peshawar Hackathon, saw 23 solutions to 23 problems, which if isn’t seen as victory then can only wonder what would that be.
Government’s role in these efforts
The government should be heavily involved in these initiatives. It is simply like a person without a spine – useless without their involvement.
- Important Learnings: The above winners were unanimous, in that the energy at the event was fantastic and a whole lot of fun. A country starved of entertainment could find such avenues greatly rewarding. Google Hangouts and Skype meet-ups cannot be called social gatherings, now can they? These should be more regular and consistent, is what was suggested– anybody remember the Chess clubs where we were held back in school? – except these actually conquer.
- Pakistan’s problems’ solution: The geniuses at the event, as the mentors themselves, agreed upon this subject. Education is the root of the country’s problems, which, if not sorted now, would sadly make it too late.
