Refugees at the Daadab camp in Kenya. Kenya mobile application
developers have been given an opportunity to unite refugee families
separated due to conflict, war and disaster May 21, 2013. FILE
AFP
Daily Nation
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Kenya mobile application developers have been given an
opportunity to unite refugee families separated due to conflict, war and
disaster.
On June 15 -16, Ericsson will pitch tent in
Nairobi to introduce a unique series of “hackathons” competition – a
weekend-long marathon of developing applications on mobile networks.
Developers will create apps accessible from
low-cost mobile phones, change interfaces or modify the built-in
messaging application that allows refugees to exchanges messages without
additional costs.
The initiative is a partnership between Ericsson
and Refugees United to find new ways of reconnecting refugees with their
family members in some of the most remote areas in the world. There are
43 million forcibly displaced people globally.
“Everyone has the right to know where their family
is. To separated refugee families, this for many years seemed
impossible. Today, we're at a tipping point where technology can help
them reconnect. Now it's up to us to act and help,” said the Refugees
United co-founder Christopher Mikkelsen.
The competition, dubbed ‘The Global Hack for
Good’, will galvanise the talent and skill of the developer community
toward a solution for separated families.
The competition will be held on three weekends,
but working toward the same goal of making re-connection easier ahead of
World Refugee Day on June 20.
The first hackathon will be in Cairo, Egypt, on
May 31-June 1. Then, a new batch of developers will gather in San
Francisco, USA, on June 7-8 and the third part in Nairobi.
Already over 200,000 refugees have registered on the service, and the aim is to reach 1 million by the end of 2015.
"Increasingly we see developers wanting to apply
their skills for a good cause - this is a true example of Technology for
Good, and we hope to see the world’s most talented developers create
new ideas to serve more separated families,” said Ericsson’s Elaine
Weidman-Grunewald.
The jury, including experts from both Ericsson and Refugees United, will select two finalists at each location.
On World Refugee Day, a winner from each location
will be announced. The three winners will get a trip to Kenya and will
be invited to test their prototypes in the Kakuma refugee camp by the
end of the year.