Eight teams turned out yesterday to vie in Guyana’s first hackathon, a 48-hour non-stop coding competition, hosted by the Ministry of Public Telecommunications under the theme, “Code til yuh drop.”
The teams, which include one from Suriname, congregated at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre yesterday, where they will remain until the competition’s end on Sunday.
Lance Hinds, Ministerial Advisor on Information and Communication Technology, related that the groups were provided with a list of four challenges beforehand from which to choose, all related to issues inherent to Guyana and the Caribbean. The countdown to the end of the competition began at midday yesterday, and will end at noon on Sunday. Judging should begin as early as 1 pm.
The first challenge requires teams to create a system that provides efficient payment of old age pensions in order to do away with long lines, transaction delays and incidents of robbery.
The second seeks to improve productivity in the agricultural sector through agribusiness by creating a platform that connects buyers and sellers, matching them based on availability of products, competitive pricing and shipping logistics.
The third challenge addresses the issue of non-compliance among property owners as regards paying rates.
The teams are required to design an engaging user interface that will allow and encourage property owners to manage personal information, manage payments and also access correspondence from the Mayor and City Council.
Challenge number four calls for teams to develop “an innovative reporting and feedback mechanism.” They are challenged to create an application that effectively manages incident reporting and solves issues that usually arise when a report is to be made, such as, how it is done and who are the relevant authorities to be contacted.
The winning team will walk away with $300,000, while the teams that place second and third will take home $200,000 and $150,000, respectively.
