Solutions for global issues

This year's IDHack event brought together students and non-profit organizations to solve problems and find creative solutions to issues around the world. During the 24-hour hackathon, the non-profits pitched problems that were tackled by undergraduate and graduate student groups. Organizations including Wave Trekker, The Dream Project, and The Exploratory took part in the event. ID Hack was put together by a student organizing committee that coordinated the opening and closing ceremonies, visits and Skype consultations between teams and non-profits, and kept participants excited throughout the night.

Three teams received top honors at the closing ceremonies. The first-place team created TegaX, a mobile app designed in response to a prompt from the non-profit Girl Effect. TegaX provides on-demand translation and transcription between English, Hausa, and other languages. Girl Effect is an organization that uses media and mobile technology to empower girls around the world. 

The second-place prize went to Konexio-matching, a platform designed to help refugees in France learn programming skills, with the aim of integrating into the French economy and society. The team worked from a prompt provided by Konexio, a group that welcomes refugees into the French community through tech and innovation.

Third place went to a team working with the organization One Light Global, which provides direct humanitarian aid to refugees in crisis. The team created a platform to help One Light Global with their mission to make aid work a collaborative process by connecting refugees with innovators and experts.