- Refugees United and Ericsson hosted a hackathon in Nairobi, Kenya, on June 15th & 16th gathering innovative developers from Nairobi
- Ericsson and Refugees United announced the two semi-finalists who will represent Kenya in the Global Hack for Good Championship
- Winners will be announced on World Refugee Day on June 20th
Nairobi, Kenya – ‘Hackathons’ are becoming increasingly popular in Nairobi, bringing together programmers, designers and developers who wish to spend the weekend networking, innovating and competing. This weekend, Ericsson and Refugees United hosted a special ‘Hack for Good’ in Kenya, which aimed to connect refugee families separated by war, conflict and disaster.
Local developers participated in a two-day hackathon in Nairobi. The event took place at 88mph, a co-creation space known as “Startup Garage.”
“Family members lose track of each other mainly during war or famine and we must continue to invent technical solutions to put them back in touch,” said Margaret Kositany, Director of Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility at Ericsson, Kenya.
Partnering since 2010, Ericsson and Refugees United seek to help separated families reconnect via mobile technology. Ericsson supports www.refunite.org – a mobile and web platform that empowers refugees to take the search for long lost family into their own hands.
“With more than 43 million forcibly displaced people of the world, there is an urgent need to reconnect families to their missing loved ones,” said Mr. Richard Ngamita, Data Analyst Manager of Refugees United. “Everyone has the right to know where their family is,” he said before announcing the two Kenyan semi-finalists.
The two winning projects were “DKK” which enables volunteers to collect data offline and synchronizes it with an online server when connection is available and the other winning team was “Team Acid” which developed an application called “refUnite plus” which is an online web registration system with finer details making it easier to locate a refugee.
This hack in Nairobi was the last in a series of three hacks taking place in Cairo, Silicon Valley, and Nairobi. Refugees United and Ericsson will announce the three global winners via Google Hangout on World Refugee Day, 20 June 2013, a day dedicated to raising awareness of the situation of refugees.
The three winners from Cairo, Nairobi and Silicon Valley will be invited to test their prototypes in a refugee camp in late 2013. Over sixty developers signed up for the Hack for Good event in Nairobi, Kenya.
ABOUT REFUNITE.ORG
Refugees United, www.refunite.org, is a free platform accessible to families worldwide – via web and mobile. This project has attracted support from Ericsson who provides operational support and advice to Refugees United. The joint mission is to connect one million refugees by 2015.
FOR MEDIA INQUIRIES, PLEASE CONTACT
- Margaret Kositany, Director of Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility, Ericsson Kenya, Margaret.kositant@refunite.org / +254 738 500826
- Ida Jeng, Communication Manager, Refugees United, ij@refunite.org / + 45 31 49 31 93
Picture caption: Team Acid (Anthony Nandaa, Mercy Orangi, Thomas Kioko , Samuel Mbugua, David Maitho and Derick Lung’aho) and Team DKK (Dennis Kawawa, David Kirui, Titus Korir and Bonny Kashif)
