On the 21st-22nd of may in Torino, the second Italian edition of Techfugees will take place. This Techfugees hackathon, aims at developing innovative solutions to help humanitarian organisations that work with incoming refugees, raise funds in emergency situations in new ways that disrupt the donation sms.
The second italian event of Techfugees will take place in Torino on the 21 and 22nd of May and with the objective of connecting the tech enthusiasts with NGOsin order to find tech solutions to the refugee needs in Europe.
Techfugees Torino is focused on hacking a single challenge: disrupting the donation SMS system – still the only tool used today when fundraising in emergency situations.
The brief for the hackathon is done by Intersos, an Italian humanitarian organization that intervenes to effectively meet the needs of civil population in serious crisis situations, and specifically the migrant arrivals in Italy and Greece. “In an emergency situation it is essential to raise funds that are necessary to guaranty fast intervention” – says Giovanni Visone, head of communication and fundraising at Intersos – “we believe that new digital technologies, and specifically peer to peer solutions, can help solve this problem for the nonprofit sector.”
The organizers– Techfugees chapter in Italy is run by Benedetta Arese Lucini, that after organising the first event with H-Farm, in Roncade (close to Venice), decided to launch a second edition, this time in partnership with TOP-IX, an important incubator within the tech community of Torino, RENA Association and StartMiUp, a startup hub and community for talent in the digital Italian scene. The hackathon will take place in a beautiful setting, within the building of Rinascimenti Sociali in Via Maria Vittoria 38, Turin.”
Schedule – The hackathon will take place on Saturday 21st of May from 10am to 12am, and Sunday 22nd from 10am to 6pm. The participants will register on Saturday morning and the session will kick off with a brief on the problem that will have to be solved, and talks from our technical partners, OJOO app that lets everyone create games without the need to know how to code, and Helperbit, the startup that uses blockchain in humanitarian assistance, making P2P donations frictionless of intermediaries and more transparent. The participants will then have the day on Saturday and Sunday until 5pm to work on their ideas that will be presented at 5pm to a jury of tech experts, Intersos managers and members from the premium sponsor teams.
Prizes – Paypal e Motorola Solutions that have generously decided to contribute by offering the selected winning teams, a few day program at their offices where developers and management will work with the teams to help bring to life the projects with concrete and actionable mentorship. TOP-IX will also provide to the winner teams a free yearly membership to their Development Program in order to help get the ideas into durable solutions.
Furthermore, during the two days our sponsors Cortilia, Foodora and Grom have kindly offered to provide goodies and surprises for all the participants involved.
Who can participate – the #TechfugeesTorino hackathon is open to everyone, you do not need to be a coder or have a technical background to participate, just the enthusiasm to get involved for the 24 hours of the event. We allow pre-formed groups to register or single individuals, that will have the time to form teams at the event. Furthermore, thanks to our technical sponsor OJOO app, all participants will be able to sign up and use their Design Studio to create a game app without the need to know how to code. At the end of the event an official Techfugees gaming app will be released on the iOs and Android store and gamers will be able to contribute to fundraising by playing one of the available games.
All information on the event is here: https://techfugeestorino.splashthat.com/
To sign up use this link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/techfugees-torino-tickets-24617322073
Contacts
Benedetta Arese Lucini, benedetta.areselucini@gmail.com
Lorenzo Benussi, lorenzo.benussi@top-ix.org
Marina Calcagno, marina@startmiup.it