Hackathon Categories

The most important thing is to learn and have fun while developing unique solutions to problems around the world. As long as your team's project has a positive impact, the sky's the limit.

The Gift Of Sight

Ocular Diagnosis

Your challenge is to create a solution that can help diagnose and treat vision-related issues in a more efficient and accessible way. With over 285 million people worldwide living with visual impairments, the need for accurate and timely diagnosis is more important than ever. The challenge is to develop innovative technology or strategies that can improve the speed and accuracy of vision diagnosis, and make it more accessible to individuals in under-served communities.

This could include developing a mobile app that allows individuals to self-diagnose common vision problems, creating a low-cost diagnostic tool for eye care professionals in resource-limited settings, or using machine learning to analyze eye imagery and detect early signs of disease.  

Navigation Aids

​Mobility and navigation devices help the visually-impaired travel safely from place to place in assisting in the identification and avoidance of various obstacles. The white cane is the typical portable instrument which provides a limited degree of tactile feedback for the user. This challenge's motivation is to create an easy to access and comprehensive alternative or supplement to traditional navigation aids for increased usability and autonomy for the user.

Example projects could include developing object detection or distance tracking algorithms integrated in a portable device to provide audio cues for nearby objects or engineering new roller white cane tips to best trek across various terrain. ​

Addressing The Digital Divide

Accessibility

Around the world, there are regions with low computer literacy rates, either due to a lack of computer education or lack of access to computers. As a hacker, you might try creating hardware, software, or policy proposals to make technology easier to use or more widespread. An example of a potential project is improving screen reading technology (like JAWS) to make navigating the internet easier for people with visual impairments. Another approach could be to create a solution that aims to improve particular digital skills, such as cybersecurity or computational thinking. 

A Transient State Of Affairs

Systemic Inequality and Discrimination

Women empowerment is essential for a fair and just society, and yet it is a finite resource that is increasingly under threat from gender inequality and discrimination. Women continue to face barriers in accessing education, healthcare, and economic opportunities, as well as experiencing violence and harassment

Your challenge is to create a solution that can help women access resources and opportunities for empowerment. This could include creating a mobile app for women to access legal resources and support, developing a mentorship program for young women, designing a program to provide microloans to women entrepreneurs, creating a platform for women to share their stories and experiences, or developing a training program to promote gender equality in the workplace.

Environmental Issues in the Anthropocene

With ever increasing human activity and consumption, many aspects of the environment have been strained to their limit, creating challenges that are assured to have considerable repercussions should they not be solved in a timely manner. Water shortages, for instance, are faced in major cities from Cape Town to Los Angeles as a result of irresponsible usage of the available resources. Air pollution continues to be the second largest cause of death worldwide, and rising sea levels threaten coastal regions everywhere. Your challenge is to create a solution that can help communities adapt to a world of constant change in water availability. This could include developing a mobile app or platform that connects people in need with resources and services or designing a model to plan sustainable use of natural resources for large urban centers.

What to Submit

Hackers are required to submit a prototype or a proof of concept of their work. Recommended forms of submission include code through a github link and/or a paragraph long summary of the project and its impact. A video (max 3 mins) further explaining or demonstrating the innovation will be required for judging.