Did you know that hackathons aren’t just for coders? Yes, it’s true! Hackathons are platforms that bring together coders, designers, engineers, entrepreneurs and many other people in various professions to come up with real life solutions to real life problems. Hackathons align with Facebook’s mission to connect everyone & impact the world through technological solutions.
So what can a group of individuals with varying opinions create? Turns out quite a lot! The long awaited local community challenge hackathon, a build day to create solutions that bring local communities and the world closer together, was held on 16th of June. All the participants had to form groups, brainstorm ideas and come up with possible solutions using one or more Facebook tools (react, messenger, graph APIs etc). The event was hosted by Impact Hub Harare, a community of innovators who strive to transform the social landscape by offering collaborative platforms and workspace for organisations and individuals with a social impact focus.
The program kicked off around 9am with one of our Zimbabwe Developers Circle leader, Kuzivakwashe Muvezwa, presenting on the importance of build days. They not only bring communities together, but also provide cutting edge solutions to societal problems and those encountered by Facebook, other tech giants and non-tech companies. After general introductions, three groups of individuals with varying degrees of knowledge and skills were formed.
During the brainstorming session, participants shared thoughts and ideas. The Zimbabwe Developers Circles team leads Tadzoka Pswarayi and Kuziva Muvezwa moved around & shared the rules and guidelines of the challenge and helped to structure ideas around those guidelines.
After a few hours of intense debates and planning, participants took a break to enjoy refreshments & burgers provided by Impact Hub Harare. Participants were able to network and regain some energy for the pitch session. Some of the amazing solutions provided during the pitch session was an app for testing the authenticity of information posted, an app to choose a route with the least amounts of potholes & a chatbot for people to volunteer their hours on a crowdfunding platform. The pitch session ended around 4pm thus ending the program for the day.
The teams will continue to work on their ideas and progress on to the global Facebook Developers Circles Community Challenge. Registration closes on the 26th of July. We can’t wait to see what the global community produces. We wish the best of luck to all our local teams!
Click here to join the Facebook Developers Circle