By Julia Bucknall, Sector Manager, Water, World Bank
It’s been almost 8 months since the World Bank Group convened the first Water Hackathon. The Water Hackathon brought nearly 1000 computer programmers in 10 cities around the world together to compete to build prototype solutions to challenges in water, including sanitation. We had worked to help governments, utilities, civil society groups, World Bank experts, and citizens define their specific water problems. Overall, more than 60 prototype solutions were built in response to the 113 water sector challenges defined. Some of the winning apps are already being used and developed for scale-up. [click to continue…]
by Ilana Cohen, London @H2Oyeah
Creators of the London Water Hackathon’s winning prototype “Taarifa” (along with an expanded community) continue to develop the tool for deployment in a few exciting pilots.
The tool is fundamentally a reporting platform. Originally designed for reporting water infrastructure failures, the tool enables users to report problems via mobile or web to a dashboard system that can manage the reports for service providers, and help providers respond to users with updates on the status of repairs. This blog post documents Taarifa’s development since the original hackathon, and lays out some plans for the near future. [click to continue…]
On June 2nd and 3rd 2012, volunteers around the world are coming together for the Random Hacks of Kindness Global Hackathon. Born in 2009, Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) is the brainchild of a partnership among Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, HP, NASA and the World Bank. The RHoK international community is over 4000 strong, encompassing not only computer programmers but [click to continue…]
by Ilana Cohen, London @H2Oyeah
The Benefits and Limitations of a Water Point Monitoring Tool
An estimated 30-40% of water points across sub-Saharan Africa do not function (RWSN). People falsely counted as having access to safe water from these may revert to unsafe or far away sources. Water ministries, district governments, or the NGOs that installed them do not do know which ones are non-functional, or where the greatest needs are for repairs or new investments. Sadly, this sustainability problem is an old one, but new approaches supported by new ICT tools may be the agents of change. This blogpost looks into the experiences of three different organisations using Water for People’s innovative technology “FLOW.”
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by Chengzi Chew, Hørsholm
Aqua Republica is an upcoming online strategy game that taps into social networks and the phenomenon of serious games. It helps raise awareness and educate stakeholders of the importance and challenges of managing limited natural resources in the face of multiple and often competing demands in the drive towards sustainable development and climate change adaptation. [click to continue…]
by Venkat Mangudi,
Bengaluru
On the 21st of February at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi. The 6 winning teams from Water Hackathon Bangalore and a couple of other applications from the Delhi Jal Board and Uttar Pradesh Midday meal authority will be presenting their applications. Senior officials from the Department of Information Technology as well as the Director of the Ministry of Urban Development (EP Niveditha) will be attending the workshop. [click to continue…]
by Ilana Cohen, London @H2Oyeah
What if citizens could use their mobile phones to both report broken water and sanitation infrastructure, and also check the status of repairs? The service provider would then need a tool to manage these reports and send repair updates to citizens. This is exactly what one team set out to create at the London Water Hackathon.
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by Halima Murunga, Nairobi
@HalimaMurunga
On Monday we held our first forum to reconnect with the participants of the water hackathon held in Nairobi. The objective was to let developers understand the problems going on with urban water situation expounding from the challenges posed at the hackathon on (Billing, Metering and water quality). We invited Stephen Otieno, a water governance specialist who has been working in the field for over 5 years. The outcome essentially is a better grasp of the sector and the opportunities of how ICT can penetrate.
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London Hackers by Mark Charmer
by Ilana Cohen, London @H2Oyeah
The October 2011 Water Hackathon marked the beginning of special union between techies and water geeks. Techies brought their skills in information technology and communications (ICT) to “hack” the water challenges brought by the water geeks, and the match was made. The event, hosted by the World Bank and over 50 partners in a multi-city, online forum, was a fruitful start to promoting the use of ICT tools in solving water issues. So what innovations are in the works? Well, that’s what this blog series aims to report, focusing somewhat on the London Hackathon, but also looking at the global event and the ICT innovations in water emerging elsewhere.
The investigation starts with the question, “What’s your problem?” Looking at what types of water problems were submitted for hacking, we can learn which ones were most hacked, and by whom? And what types of solutions and tools were most used? Together these can show us the emerging trends in this new arena.
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Abu Erdan means "father of beaks" in reference to the long beak sported by the egret, and they do assist the farmers of Egypt by eating the grubs, worms and even young mice that might be turned up in the tilling and cultivating of the soil. http://bit.ly/zRgl3Z
by Karim S. Shalaby, Cairo
At the Cairo Water Hackathon held at the American University in Cairo October 21-22 2011, a group of three developers created Abu Erdan. Ahmed Marzouk, Islam Khalil and Ramy Hegazy came into the Water Hackathon wide eyed and tentatively feeling through every step of the way. They were not alone, most of the participants had not heard of a Water Hackathon and were coming to this experience with the same fears and doubts of being taken on a tour by a street guide in a foreign land.
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