Programmers create beneficial application

ANKARA

The purpose of the hackathon is to develop Android applications that have social benefits.

A two-day Social Entrepreneurship Hackathon, a joint initiative by the U.S. embassy, Google Turkey and Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) Teknokent, kicked off at ODTÜ campus yesterday, with 75 students from 15 universities gathering to develop socially conscious applications.

The purpose of the hackathon, a name given to events where programmers collaborate intensively to develop software projects, is to develop Android applications that have social benefits. The categories defined for the present event are emergency preparedness or disaster management, disability rights, education, environment or green technologies and community solutions such as traffic applications, domestic violence alerts and healthcare applications. The applications produced at the end of 24 hours, which is the time limit granted to students, will be presented to a jury for them to select a winner today.

 The criteria in the competition will be relevance to the topic, technicality and feasibility. During the opening ceremony of the event, ODTÜ’s deputy rector, Volkan Atalay; Deputy Industry, Science and Technology Minister Davut Kavranoğlu; Google’s public relations manager, Pelin Kuzey; and the U.S. embassy’s chargé d’affaires, Jess Baily, were present. All declared their support for the students and the importance they attach to socially beneficial projects.

Kavranoğlu addressed the students, saying, “I would like you to develop projects that bring people together and improve their welfare,” while also promising them full support.
Baily, meanwhile, underlined the importance of social entrepreneurship.