Three teams have emerged winners of the Microsoft South Africa safe@home hackathon. Winning a prize pool of eight thousand US Dollars.
Six teams made it to the final qualifying round of the hackathon competition. With three teams Combat against GBV, iWitness and Report Matters going on to win it. Coming in first, second and third places and winning $5000, $2000 and $1000 respectively.
Microsoft sponsored the Safe@home hackathon to discover technology-based solutions that can address gender-based violence. An issue that saw a dramatic rise during the mandatory quarantine period of covid-19 in South Africa.
Winning Team, Combat against GBV presented an educational and interactive solution made to educate women and children on GBV. Using services such as a Twitter bot, USSD, WhatsApp chatbot and Facebook messenger. The solution also informs people on how to take action, find and ask for help. Members of Team Combat against GBV include; Naomi Bisimwa, Christine Bisimwa, Carol Khose and Mosa Nkomo.
The winning solution will be developed into a full application to be owned and used by the campaign’s NGO partners 1000 Women and TEARS Foundation.
We have seen a wealth of creative and sustainable ideas from our developer teams who have grappled with the unique issues and challenges surrounding gender-based violence in South Africa, says Lillian Barnard, Managing Director of Microsoft South Africa. The winning solution would effectively be able to help South Africa’s most vulnerable and at-risk.
Watch the six finalist teams present their ideas at the finals.
Click to find out more about the competition.
Click to check out other stories making the news in the ecosystem across the region.
- First look and hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360
- Microsoft brings three new Azure Specialization courses to Coursera
- Here is what you should know about Microsoft Build 2021 May digital event
- Team Bloom wins Microsoft Game of Learners virtual hackathon
- Canon selects 10 Mathare community students to study at KCA University
- New TECNO Spark 7P comes with 16MP AI triple camera
- 1150 students participate in UmojaHack Africa 2021 ML hackathon
- Microsoft is inviting female software engineers in Nigeria and Ghana to participate in a SE skills workshop
- 60 students across Nigeria and Kenya participate in Microsoft Hackathon
- Zimbabwean company gets Microsoft OEM certification, produces Infinity laptop and desktop computers
- Nigerian tech startup develops online meeting solution
- 1.1M Africans acquire digital skills during COVID-19
