Covid-19 exposed the weakness of the data held by municipalities across South Africa. Lack of information about vulnerable families made it difficult to implement focused and effective disaster-management and support initiatives. That’s the challenge at the heart of a weekend hackathon in March 2024, hosted in Johannesburg by Kagiso Trust in partnership with the Empire Partner Foundation (EPF).
The event, with a prize of R20,000 for the winning team, will aim to develop a tech solution to address data management in municipalities.
“We are at a pivotal moment where technology can drastically improve how local government operates,” says Mankodi Moitse, CEO of Kagiso Trust. “Our goal is to find sustainable, innovative solutions that will lead to more data-driven and efficient decision-making in our municipalities and result in agility in service delivery.”
Municipalities require essential information about the people residing within their boundaries. It is crucial to know the number of residents, as well as understand their needs and vulnerabilities, to effectively allocate funds and devise policies.
EPF CEO Joanna Govender underscores the critical importance of automating and prioritizing community digital registration, emphasising the foundation’s commitment to “Solve for X.” This strategic move is poised to enhance municipal oversight and pave the way for the development of impactful projects, essentially functioning as a localised census.
Having successfully organised over 40 hackathons in collaboration with both local and international organisations, as well as government entities, EPF has positively influenced the lives of more than 5,000 digital innovators. Govender highlights the foundation’s dedication to community development and social innovation through its partnership with Kagiso Trust, embracing the “Solve for X” approach. She expresses eagerness to witness the transformative solutions that will emerge from this collaborative event, where the intersection of technology and social impact is expected to yield meaningful outcomes.
The creative minds, tech enthusiasts and problem solvers who join the hackathon will be put into teams of no more than ten. As they work over two days, experts will be assigned as online and onsite mentors. Teams will be able to seek guidance on technical, subject matter and business/marketing/financial aspects of their solutions.
For each challenge area, teams will be required to submit a pitch deck highlighting the customer problem, the solution they have developed and its unique value proposition. They are also expected to have a working prototype, which could be a web app, a mobile app, a website, dashboard, chatbot or other user interface technology.
The winning team will be selected by a jury panel of up to seven experts.
Event details
Date: 16-17 March 2024
Time: 8am
Location: EPF Tech Hub, 35 Ferguson Road, Illovo, Sandton
Registration: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeyAv3x5kCnWX9fePu4odc5NxqUfgkXcuHyg5-VD4b37k2AqA/viewform
