Globalization met hyper-localization at this weekend's Hack The Change, a three-day hackathon at Venturef0rth organized by the University of Pennsylvania's Society for International Development. Bringing together students, developers and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the March 16-18 hackathon encouraged them to identify and solve real-world problems, especially in the developing world, through innovative tech solutions.
“The motivation came from me and Casey [Rosengren, a junior at Penn]. We both started companies at hackathons, so we understand how effective they can be,”said Pratham Mittal, a junior at Penn and one of the core organizers of the event.
Mittal, originally from India, was inspired by Philadelphia's interest in the intersections between technology and social impact. “I heard about the SEPTA hackathon last semester, and I knew that Philly is into civic hackathons, so I thought I'd try it because Penn has never done something like this,” he said.
“This is the first time I have come across a hackathon that pitched problem statements that are not from a tech angle,” said Arpita Biswas, a first-year Masters student at Penn. Her team designed an Internet-search interface over SMS.
Hack The Change had a very global scope, focusing on issues such as international development, humanitarian aid and mass atrocities prevention. Because cellular service and mobile phones are more widely available than computers and Internet in the developing world, many teams designed text-message-based apps. In fact, the three winners of the hackathon were all SMS-based. The grand prize went to Monitor Squared, an election monitoring system. PNP Alerts, an SMS-based emergency alert system, took second place, and TextTheChange, a campaign creator, placed third.
Other teams took a more Philly-centric approach to hacking, creating apps that utilize Philly's extensive transit data. Twilio Food Banks, for example, is a touchtone phone interface for finding local food banks. Memento is a public-transit app that reminds its user when and where to get off, and Abelian can be used to coordinate carpools more efficiently.
“We hope these are things that can actually be used and impact people's lives,” Rosengren said.
Despite the fact that Mittal and Rosengren began planning the event only six weeks ago, Hack The Change was able to gather support from a wide range of organizations. NGOs like Amnesty International, USAID and STAND came out to discuss the problems they'd like to see hackers tackle. Representatives from local companies such as Voxeo, Cloudmine and Azavea as well as major corporate sponsors like Google, Twilio and Yahoo! provided mentoring throughout the weekend.
Josh Marks, a program officer at the National Endowment for Democracy, proposed a project to create an SMS-based alert system for citizens in developing countries facing attacks. One team took on the challenge, and at the end of the day, their service, PNP Alerts, took second place. “The work being done here is like R&D [research and development] for us,”Marks said. “I'm hopeful that this will be used in the future.”
Venturef0rth, a new coworking space in Callowhill that opened in January, provided the space for hackers to work and sleep during the hackathon. Co-owned by Elliot Menschik, a Penn alum, Jesse Kramer and Jay Shah, the workspace is designed for the work schedules of early-stage startup founders. It's open 24 hours a day, and bean bags and ping-pong tables are scattered all over the space, so that people can take naps and breaks at all hours. As it turns out, this is also perfect for hackathons. During Hack The Change, people could be seen napping and lounging on the bean bags and playing pong when they were not coding.
“I was really impressed when I came in here,” said Tommy Panfang, a Penn freshman. “I felt like, I would wanna work here for a long time.”
Fellow hackers echoed this sentiment. “It's a wonderful way to spend a weekend,” said Biswas.
IVANA NG is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. Originally from New York City, she enjoys writing about education, technology and the arts. Send feedback here.
PHOTOS:
L to R : (first row) Abe Marciano, Casey Rosengren, Sandy (Shengzhi) Sun; (second row) Sanchit Aggarwal, Arpia Biswas, Colleen Carrol; (third row) Luke Burns, Rajib Dutta, Megha Agrawal.
Hackathon organizers Pratham Mittal and Casey Rosengren
Participant working at Saturday's hackathon
Participants working together at the Venturef0rth space
App possibilities hang all around the space
Taking a rest
Working hard
Brainstorming session
All photographs by MICHAEL PERSICO
