13th nov 2013 had a great thing to notice, A hackathon for women. Most hackathons around the world focuses on tech platforms, software language, business development or other related topics, but a hackathon organised by Grace Hopper India, in Bangalore had a very different and innovative topics.
Organised only for female developers and students, the event focused on free and open source software based humanitarian projects. The top three major project frame works were : -
More than 100 women from the Tech Field attended the event and contributed to areas like financial inclusion, locations & maps, safe areas, and health & medicine.
MifosX is a free and open source financial-service system. Some of the hackathon participants worked with the MifosX framework to build a platform that enables financial-service providers to serve an estimated 2.5 billion poor and unbanked people globally. It takes the form of a management information system for microfinance institutions to manage and track funds, loans, installments, savings, deposits and related reports for accounting and analysis.
The favourite topic was the the Bachchao project, that focused on custom crowd sourced maps that highlights information about local police stations, hotels, accomodation and NGOs. This can be a great help for the women travellers worried about their safety. This project was started last year during the Grace Hopper India event.
The Clinical Reminders system brought the female techies together to build and work on a Web service that gives reminders and alerts on medication, tests, immunizations or medical examinations.
My Opinion :
It was a great step towards motivation of women community and concerned about their safety and health. The event could have been much better if it had not been resticted to only women.
What do you think about this? Let us know in the comments below.