HackaDev 3.0 – UNDP’s Youth Social Innovation Camp, HackaDev, held to facilitate meaningful participation of youth to find innovative solutions for current development challenges, recently concluded at the Dialog Axiata Head Office with figve teams being recognised for their creative solutions.
The ‘HackaDev’ initiative in its 3rd edition was structured around three core challenges - Water, Disaster Risk Reduction, and Peacebuilding with Volunteerism as a cross-cutting element. To ensure the sustainability of the solutions developed. the winning teams will have the opportunity to work with relevant stakeholders to prototype and develop their ideas further.
Through a partnership with Sri Lanka’s largest telecommunication partner Dialog and with the support of the Disaster Management Ministry and the UN Volunteers Sri Lanka, HackaDev was held to find innovative and next-gen solutions to identified development challenges.
After a total of 70 submissions, 15 teams of 75 young people were shortlisted to develop their solutions over a period of two days. The Team Sparkle from the Informatic Institute of Technology, who proposed an innovative resource network for the Disaster Management Centre, emerged overall champions of the HackaDev 3.0 whilst the team ‘Indigo’ and the team ‘xChord’ under the Water pillar were placed 1st and 2nd runner up respectively.
Commenting on the initiative, UNDP Sri Lanka Country Director Joern Soerensen, stated that it is inspiring to see so many young people from different geographical location and backgrounds coming together to develop innovative solutions to development challenges in the country. "The collaboration with Dialog is key to providing a techno-social platform to facilitate these solutions,” he said.
Dialog Axiata PLC Group Chief Executive Officer Supun Weerasinghe said it is indeed a great privilege to work with UNDP, the experts in sustainability and development. "Bringing UNDP’s expertise in sustainability with our technology platforms and the capabilities of our young talent, creates a winning combination to enrich and empower Sri Lankan lives and enterprises,” he said.
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