CC image courtesy of Maurits & Marjol.
The Mozambican Ministry of Science and Technology said in a statement the hackathon will be conducted by a majority of students studying technology, business and informatics in Maputo.
“This time around the theme will be natural disaster management and there will be experts from the... National Institute of Disaster Management present to speak about what kind of situations occur in Mozambique and how we could help them managing disasters [such] as floods for example,” said the ministry.
Furthermore, the ministry said the hackathon will particularly focus on warning management systems, rescue management systems, and organisational data/knowledge management systems.
The hackathon will also present a training programme with a focus on designing, building and developing Android applications. The training session will be presented by Aubrey Malabie, who was the previous hackathon’s facilitator.
Malabie is an entrepreneur in residence for the Southern African mLab. He is reportedly also mentoring more than 10 startups on both business and technical skills.
“The participants form teams of two [to] six persons and come up with an idea for a mobile application and how they could [make a] business out of the application. At the end of the hackathon the teams will present their ideas in front of a jury who will select three winners,” said the ministry.
The winner will receive MZN80,000 (US$2,600), the runner up will receive MZN40,000 (US$1,300), and the second runner up will receive MZN 20,000 (US$650).