KARACHI: The auditorium of Habib University on Sunday evening was abuzz with activity as the three-day hackathon ‘I am Karachi Innovation Challenge’, held in collaboration with Pakistan Innovation Foundation, came to an end, providing opportunities to the charged up winning teams, whose projects aced above the rest.

A panel of five dignitaries — I Am Karachi Consortium President Jameel Yusuf, P@SHA President Jahan Ara, writer Romana Hussain, journalist and lawyer Ayesha Tammy Haq and Creative Chaos CEO Omair Aziz — was invited to judge the four best projects out of the seven short-listed ones.

With a registration of almost 396 teams and 958 individuals, 130 teams and 40 individuals made it to the first round, with 31 making it to the semis and seven reaching the finals, including two wild-card entries.

The winners will be supported by multiple organisations to kick-start their projects. The projects presented by teams of creative individuals varied from applications for crime control and car pooling, drone first-aid kits, education portal for children with special needs, book banks and a platform for art and cultural activities.

The judges gauged the presentations on the degree of innovation and sustainability of the project and threw various questions at the participants testing their abilities to prove the worth of their projects.

However, the two clear winners of the competition were 2 Square’s Baithak and UAP Solutions’ ASCl System, with the former aiming to bring cultural and art activities to the public in accordance with the area and the latter aiming to help special children integrate in society through a portal with different educational applications for parents and teachers alike.

The three prizes given to the winners were in the form of merchandise and services with Rs300,000 given to the first winner, Rs100,000 to the second and Rs100,000 given to one more under ‘CFP Sabeen Mahmud Prize for Most Innovative Civic Hack’.

While 2 Square and UAP Solutions shared the first, the third prize of Rs100,000 was awarded to Team Cuckoo for Real Time Surveillance System and I am Sabeen Prize was presented to Team Axon for their project IRS (Incident Reporting System).

Speaking about the projects, Jameel Yusuf appreciated the teams for coming up with solutions to some pressing problems in the city within three days and lamented that the elders had indeed made a mess of this country and prosperity of the state depended on the younger lot.

Romana Hussain said it was a wonderful opportunity for the participants, who were privileged enough as during her time such platforms were not available to the youngsters. She said: “It is heartening to see a wild card entry for the arts category. Bravo!”

Omair Aziz, who turned out to be one of the most critical panellists, lauded the teams for their immense efforts. He said: “We all have an opinion for the problems engulfing the country but few are willing to go forward and work for them. These young people have shown that only they can actually solve the problems.”

He added that when he heard about the huge number of entries he had thought that perhaps there was an error. “The number of entries testifies the fact that the youth thinks about country’s problems. Technology has made innovations and many sustainable projects,” he said.

Impressed by the dedication of the teams, Jahan Ara said that the teams came up with solutions to the various problems in two and a half days was something remarkable.

Ayesha Tammy Haq said she was glad to see the absence of cynicism and was hopeful that the country could be left to the young people.

Karachi Commissioner Shoaib Siddiqui greeted the organisers for providing a platform for such ground-breaking ideas and said that the citizens and government needed to work together to ensure progress.

Athar Osama concluded the programme by saying that the idea conceived two years ago had finally manifested itself because innovation found a way. Calling Karachi the “innovation capital” of Pakistan, he said if such development could happen in other parts of the country, it could happen in the metropolis also.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2015

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