Water and Sanitation Hackathon Pakistan was organized at Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), Lahore on 1st and 2nd December. Twenty five teams presented 27 solutions to 13 problems of water and sanitation of different regions of Pakistan.
“Instead of just complaining about sanitation conditions, we are engaging students to become part of the solution,” Anjum Rehman of the Water and Sanitation Programme.
Urban Unit, Punjab IT Board and World bank were the leading partners of the event. Mentors from different software houses were available from time to time to help students out and guide them. SMSall.pk provided free sms gateways to students enabling them to produce solutions which were very much practical and applicable for the ease of using technology for a common man. The two days in-house coding was an amazing experience for me and my team. Being from Balochistan, experiencing professional environment is the best experience for you can acquire. Coding competitions and IT professionals together is a sight which can rarely be seen here. Though, our team didn’t achieve the goal of providing a functional solution to a selected problem statement but still our work was appreciated . We gained immense knowledge about developing practical solutions to common problems of daily life. The exposure to the problems of rural and remote areas of the country extended our vision of the ground realities. You can feel the intensity of the #SanHack yourself by just watching this video. An amazing work by LoLz Studios!
The wining teams were offered to work with World Bank. Other distinctive opportunities were also offered to these young students, too. I personally think such events if organized can result to be very productive in many ways. As, the solutions can be carved out by the people who are suffering. Promoting our talented youth is surely a good bye to all our sufferings!
Regards,
Luqman Khan