January 2021 started in force for the easyRights consortium. Three online hackathons, in Birmingham, Larissa and Malaga, were held and one is due to be held in February 2021. The first outcomes of these hackathons are briefly presented below.
Birmingham Hackathon
Birmingham City Council's easyRights Hackathon took place on 13th January 2021. The three-day virtual hackathon event took place with teams competing for the top prize. The judging panel announced that the Hackathon winner was Gurmeet Singla, CEO of FiCode Technologies Limited as the winner following his proposal to implement a translation widget using easyRights technology in audio and written format for the Brum Breathes website.
Gurmeet will now work with Birmingham City Council to develop and implement his idea.
Larissa Hackathon
The Municipality of Larissa, as a partner of the european project "easyRights - Enabling immigrants to easily know and exercise their rights", successfully organized the online hackathon "Larissa - A city for all" from 21st to 23rd of January 2021. During the hackathon, the competing teams had the opportunity to develop and present highly valuable proposals, which can later be integrated into the services offered by the Municipality of Larissa. Moreover through the hackathon the services that are addressed to the immigrants can be improved. After studying the proposed solutions of the two teams, the jury chose the solution that is more relevant to the objectives of the project and incorporated existing tools. It is also worth noting the importance of the mentors as they advised and guided the two teams to combine their proposed solution with the tools already developed by the project partners.
Malaga Hackathon
The Malaga pilot supported by Christar International and BIC Euronova enjoyed a successful and educational hackathon in between 21st to 23rd of January 2021. This hackathon created an environment in which the participants, speakers, mentors and facilitators could all learn from one another’s experience and work towards the common goal of alleviating some of the challenges faced by refugees in Spain. Guided by industry experts, the participants worked together to design a tool that will save time and effort for refugees as they navigate the asylum process. Due to all of this hard work, at the end of the three-day event, a group of the participants was awarded a contract to continue to design and build this incredibly helpful tool. We are grateful for the mentors and speakers that made this event possible by providing invaluable insight into the challenges that refugees face as they navigate the asylum process in Spain!
Palermo Hackathon
easyRights project, is proposing some services for the (im)migrants that facilitate the comprehension of official documents and support language learning in the hosting county. In order to integrate the project with the common practices in local public administrations, the project proposes a double cycle of hackathons. In between 18-20 Feb the hackathon in Palermo closed the first cycle, after the hackathons in Birmingham, Larissa and Malaga.
The big creativity triggered by the hackathon in Palermo also produced other solutions, such as a chat app that provides instructions to guide the migrant to fill in the documentation, but could also be used to solve everyday needs (e.g. “where can I go to sleep?”, “which office should I contact?”). The Palermo public administration, who participated as a mentor and in the jury to select the winner, realized how those creative exercise start from migrants’ problems, but are also a chance to re-think the services offered to the general public.
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