Hacking during a natural disaster
Hackathon at RPI relates to Hurricane Florence
TROY, N.Y. » As Hurricane Florence gnawed at the mid-Atlantic coast, contest participants put their hacking skills to good use over the weekend in the Call for Code Hackathon: Natural Disaster Preparedness and Relief Code Challenge.
The inaugural challenge, held Saturday and Sunday at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s East Campus Athletic Village, is part of a multi-year partnership between the college and its Rensselaer Center for Open Source along with IBM, David Clark Cause, United Nations Human Rights, and The American Red Cross.
Rensselaer Center for Open Source director Wes Turner explained the purpose of the event. “It’s [to] harness the power of our young technical minds to address problems in the world,” he said.
More than 140 local competitors came up with fresh ideas in disaster communication during the two-day hackathon challenge, part of a larger, worldwide Call for Code initiative.
During the event, engineering, design, and computer science students, as well as other participants from the community, came together for 24 hours to generate ideas and initial prototypes for apps and web tools to aid communication in the face of natural disasters.
“When you think about RPI you think about science and engineering and technology,” dean of engineering Dr. Shekhar Garde said. “Obviously we are very passionate about these areas, but I think there’s something more that is going on here, and it’s applying science, engineering and particularly coding to solve global challenges.”
Call for Code is a multi-year global rallying cry for developers to use their skills and mastery of the latest technologies, to create new ones, and to drive positive change across the world through their code, according to the organization’s website. This effort aims to bring startup, academic, and enterprise developers together and inspires them to solve the most pressing current societal issues.
The competitive challenge asks developers to work out how to use AI, Blockchain, Cloud, Data, and IoT technologies most effectively to improve communities’ disaster preparedness and resiliency.
Unlike any other hackathon, the winner of the global challenge will receive $200,000, work with IBM’s Corporate Service Corps to deploy the solution, and get to pitch their solution to New Enterprises Associates for evaluation and feedback.
For the students who spent their weekend in Rensselaer’s East Campus Athletic Village, the Call For Code was also an opportunity to interact with IBM recruiters, network with campus peers and build their technical resumes.
With this year’s theme focused on natural disasters, “We couldn’t have a more topical time,” said dean of science Curt Breneman.
The urgency to create technology than can help was all the more real for participants because of Hurricane Florence.
In just about 30 minutes of planning one team of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students came up with the idea for an artificial intelligence bot that people can text during a disaster to request information such as nearest evacuation sites. Then, it could provide data for first responders and others to analyze. Team members said the project meant more to them because of the natural disaster currently happening in the country. “A lot of the thinking was hurricane-related because of Florence,” said freshman competitor Jake Billings.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute grad Dr. Angel Diaz, IBM’s vice president of developer technology, said the challenge is “to try to motivate the world to solve some of the biggest problems.” He continued, “If one solution makes a difference, saves a life - it’s all been worth it.”
During the hackathon’s opening ceremony on Saturday, Diaz told participants why they should code: “You should code because it’s worth it.”
More information about the Call for Code challenge, which continues through Sept. 28, is available online at callforcode.org. Dean of engineering Dr. Shekhar Garde speaks to participants at the Call for Code Hackathon over the weekend at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy.