Once again, The Kenya Red Cross Society, this time in conjunction with the World Bank shall hold the Random Hacks of Kindness (RHOK) East Africa Hackathon on the 5th & 6th October 2013. In Kampala, the event will be hosted at Outbox.
The competition will bring together about 300 youthful hackers from four (4) East African Countries developing practical open source technological solutions. The theme for the Hackathon is "RESILIENCE BUILDING INNOVATIONS" in the following thematic areas:
Kenya Red Cross Society successfully hosted the 2012 RHOK EAST AFRICA COMPETITION involving Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. The Event took place in 25 cities all around the world and the Kenyan event at Kenya Red Cross Headquarters was adjudged to have been the most widely followed around the world and received the most participation, ahead of similar events in places such as Toronto, Washington DC and Berlin.
This year Kenya Red Cross Society seeks to build on last year's edition by having Four (4) East African Countries, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda taking part in the RHOK event. The event will be centered in Nairobi with live stream from the participating countries simultaneously being shown in Nairobi and around the world.
This year's theme of "Building Resilience" looks focuses on any innovations that improve individual or community resilience. Resilience is essentially the ability to withstand, and the improvement of this ability whether through better technology or more sustainable or meaningful outputs all play a role in building resilience. Improving qualitative and quantitative indicators in agricultural, health, water and sanitation all have an impact on resilience. Improved preparedness, response and better future adaptation likewise impact on floods, droughts, food security and climate change.
The use of innovative technology to find better solutions to reduce disasters (read Droughts, Floods, Food Security, and Climate Change) or to improve the resilience or sustainability of agricultural, health, water and sanitation are thus the focus for this year's RHOK Hackathon.
The RHOK event contributes towards Vision 2030 as the development of ICT and ICT related services is an anchor of the Economic Pillar. It also promotes the Social Pillar as it is about youth and their creativity and development. By encouraging "Tech" solutions that are based on innovation and vision, the competition promotes Kenya and the East African region as a hub of invention and innovativeness.
Kenya Red Cross Society recognizes the challenges youth face and appreciates the contribution they make in advancing humanity and in responding to various challenges that communities face. KRCS strives to create opportunities to counteract this. The RHOK event is one activity that creates an opportunity for youth to interact and share ideas through technology.
We are deeply interested in what specific problems within the theme of this year you may be interested in seeing being solved. You do not need to be a subject matter expert to identify a topical problem within any of the thematic areas that young hackers could work to solving. Kindly therefore feel free to suggest a problem statement you would perhaps wish to see solved. You are free to suggest any number of problem statements and the format for doing so is enclosed herein. A report of last year's event is also enclosed with the problem statements that were solved. You can use the said problem statements as an example of how to frame a problem statement.
You are requested to let us have any problem statements you may wish to contribute within the next Ten(10) Days and to forward any response to THE RHOK SECRETARIAT,KENYA RED CROSS SOCIETY HQ. We suggest the same be hand delivered for purposes of expediency. Solutions to problem statements will often require funding to incubate and fully develop and you are encouraged should you be so interested to play a role in facilitating such incubation of winning solutions by way of funding. Any such support would amount to your contribution to solving African and global challenges meaningful development.
We look forward to your earliest response and thank you in advance for attending to this communication
