TechCamp and TADHack are recently concluded hackathon events where developers and programmers are competing for their new innovations. TechCamp is spearheaded by the U.S. State Department’s Civil Society 2.0 initiative that links all the civil society organizations around the world with the latest emerging technology resources to find solutions to real world problems.
The 36th leg of TechCamp was held for the first time here in the Philippines with the help of the U.S. Embassy in Manila, US Agency for International Development (USAID), the UN-World Food Programme (WFP), Globe Telecom, Goodle Developers Group Philippines and Open Data Inititiative.
Meanwhile TADHack stands for Telecom Application Develepor Hackathon and is a global event that is synchronously held in six different cities around the world; Manila, Philippines; Madrid, Spain; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Chicago, USA; Pune, India; and Colombo, Sri Lanka. It was the first time for the Philippines to host the event and it was facilitated by Globe Telecom.
Last Saturday on Vigattin Radio, we invited the people who won these two tech events and discussed their winning apps. With anchors Den Macaranas and Mr. Elison Barcelo, they were joined by esteemed guests Mr. Jofell Gallardo of Meetplus/ERPAT, Mr. Mark Steve Samson of Kuwago, Mr. Theodore Gonzalez co-creator of an assessing structural integrity app, Mr. Joseph Emmanuel Dayo of ERPAT, Mr. Beato Bongco of AnYare, and Mr. Mardin Tesoro of Coneeds/98Labs.
They first talked about Techcamp, Mr. Jofell told Vigattin Radio; “Techcamp centers around disaster risk reduction so actually before the hackathon there is a pre-event that was attended by LGUs with assistance from USAID and also Globe Labs. So the event tackles the technologies than can help reduce disaster risks.”
Later on the first placer of Techcamp talked on Vigattin Radio. Mr. Mark Steve Samsom told them about how Kuwago works. He said, “The app gives an overview of the current condition of flood levels on its displacement. There’s a dashboard that allows you to quickly assess the situation. For example, if there’s a disaster scenario, you can know if it’s okay to evacuate the people and if you can take the necessary steps needed.”
So it means that like an owl (kwago), the app can give you a bird’s view of the current flood conditions. When asked if it’s just the same of DOST’s Project Noah, he answered: “What we did on Kwago is it aims to be easily understood by the majority that who are not knowledgeable about the terms use in Project Noah.”
Afterwards, the second placer of Techcamp discussed the structural assessment application that he co-created. He explained, “We made this [app] because in reality during calamities, people prepare by buying goods, services and equipments. They just check if the space [evacuation area] is huge enough to accommodate them, but they don’t really check if the structure is still in good condition to hold storms or other calamities.”
He continued, “So this app will help assess the structure,” The app will ask a property owner a set of questions that can help to assess the property’s structure. The information that will be get will be automatically sent to a server that puts the details into a file, subsequently, they can send it to a professional for more assessment.
The next to talk is Mr. Jofell Gallardo, he discussed how ERPAT works. ERPAT stands for Electronic Registry for Permit Assessment and Tracking. Its goal is to streamline the process of getting a building permit although the system focuses on getting a location permit. The application can be used to make the transaction more fast and transparent.
He added that one can pinpoint the location of the property if it’s in a hazardous area or not.
They then discussed TADhack. Mr. Beato Bangco of AnYare, the first placer of the hackathon told Vigattin Radio that the app’s name is short for Anong Nangyari?, which means what happened. AnYare is an app for team communication and does not require internet connection. He added, “Our tagline is updates from team anytime, anywhere.”
Anyare works by allowing registered users to create teams and each one on the list of their team can receive a call at a pre-determined time and they just can record their answer in which the designated team leader can retrieve the response through the app. Everyone on the team is synchronized as if they’re not moving anywhere.
“Our goal is to widely create an app that doesn’t need to utilize internet connection, not everyone has a smartphone and internet availability in the Philippines is not very good. Philippines is still developing and we want a way to communicate effectively and efficiently without breaking the barriers using a smartphone,” he told Vigattin Radio.
Later to talk were the two second placers of TADhack, Mr. Jofell Gallardo of Meetplus and Mr. Marden Tesoro of CoNeeds. Both are chosen by TADhack because they are promising.
Mr. Marden talked on Vigattin Radio about how CoNeeds works. He said, “CoNeeds aims to bring experts to the people who needs them. We believe that there are some experts in remote places that cannot be reached by the internet and at the same time there are also people who are in need of an expert.”
They intend to make it available to the healthcare industry in which one can easily have a remote diagnosis.
Afterwards, MeetPlus’ Jufell Gallardo told Vigattin Radio about their winning app. Meetplus aims to provide enterprise synchronization through SMS. He uttered, “Basically, Filipino time is the common problem of some enterprises. In a company there are meetings every day, and most of the time we forgot it. So we thought of an app that can be a channel for communicating, specifically for meetings. So if you text to our number, automatically the app will create an event for that particular meeting.”
He added that MeetPlus allows automatic meeting notifications to participants using SMS as well gives the latter a chance to respond. The guests later answered questions from the listeners and give a parting message to them before the show ended.
The TechCamp winners will be working with participating LGUs from Sorsogon Ciy, Mabitac in Laguna and Cagayan province. Both winning teams from TechCamp and TADhack will be given an opportunity by the Globe Labs to accelerate and commercialize their app.
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