GovHackSA devs create micro-polling app to make citizens more active

As part of World Design Capital Event in May this year, GovHackSA took place in Cape Town over the weekend. The day-long hackathon saw more than 40 novice to experienced coders come together and find creative solutions to problems posed by the City of Cape Town.

There were three challenges. Each participant could choose which challenge they wanted to work on, and teams were formed organically.

Dubbed the Last Mile for the Base of the Pyramid, the first challenge was sponsored by the World Design Capital and asked attendees to develop a mapping solution to market and distribute life-changing products like solar lights, clean stoves or water filters.

Next, hackers were challenged to help the City of Cape Town showcase council facilities by making the location, availability and cost easily available to the public. The challenge was called the Cape Town Residents App.

The last challenge, titled The Active Citizen, asked attendees to create a platform that encourages citizens to share, cooperate and unite.

The winning group, Pulse, who worked on the Active Citizen challenge consisted Alek Gallo, Bruce Bassett, Riccardo Iovino, Michael Graaf and Coenraad Loubser who created a mobile micro-polling platform. They walked away with an opportunity to expand on their application with Government and fast tracking how applications can be build with Government and prizes from Google.

The Judging panel consisted of Brett St Clair from Google, Tim Andrews from DotModus, Vuyisa Qabaka from The Barn and Councillor Garreth Bloor representing the City of Cape Town.

The keynote speaker for this edition was Gertus Byleveld from Journey who highlighted their partnership with Silicon Cape and encourages all developers to turn their applications in businesses. Other partners include MLabs Southern Africa, 22seven, South African Breweries, ODADI, Coding for Democracy and Cape Town Entrepreneurship Week.

A complimentary prize to the runner-ups who also worked on the Active Citizen were given a voucher to attend the Lean Startup Program which is being launched in Cape Town on the 31st May 2014.

Image via Aslam Levy