JOIN USA ‘929 socio-tech hackathon’ was recently organised by TEDx Ulsoor in partnership with ‘GoodWorks CoWork’. GoodWorks CoWork is an innovative co-working studio that provides an ideal environment to unfold the entrepreneur in you. GoodWorks also mentored the participants and the winning team was provided with the opportunity of interning with them in the Workbench projects.
Unlike the usual hackathon events, this one had a twist. It was based on hacking the world issues using presentation and coding skills. It was a one-of-a-kind socio-tech hackathon where the participants were asked to solve a real-world problem from a TEDx talk.
Over 15 teams participated in the first round and four teams reached the final round. The winning team consisted of two participants from East Point College of Engineering and Technology — third-year students of CS, Surya Pratap and Srivijay.
They designed a solution for the problem statement, ‘Ending poverty by designing a technology that fosters equality, is relatively cheap and runs mundane devices that do the most good.’ They designed an SMS service bot that acts as a middle person and connects the public, in need of services such as jobs and skills, directly to the NGOs and entrepreneurs registered.
The team has been provided with a technical internship at the GoodWorks Lab for a month. Having successfully completed four pre-events, TEDx Ulsoor are excited about their main event — TED talks with the theme ‘Silience’ which is taking place on April 30.