A two-day road safety hackathon, first of its kind in the country, being organised by Kerala Road Safety Authority, will commence at Technopark here on Saturday.
The World Bank, International Financial Corporation, and Axa Insurance are supporting the event being facilitated by the Group of Technology Companies of Kerala (GTech) and coordinated by AngelHack, a Silicon Valley-based hackathon champion.
The hackathon will aim at developing technology solutions to promote road safety to help reduce road accidents, R. Sreelekha, Road Safety Commissioner and State Transport Commissioner, said. The government will hand-hold the developers of prototypes chosen by a judging panel towards converting them into final product/programme over a period of up to six months. It will enter into an MoU with them and bear all expenses for conversion, but will proceed to own the product/programme. This will later be provided free-of-cost to the public.
The final product will be made available as software programmes, mobile/web applications, internet solutions, or even mechanical products.
At least 350 people have already registered for the hackathon which will begin at 12 noon. It will go on until 12 p.m. on Sunday. Techies will employ their skills to find out solutions to issues concerned with the four ‘E’s that govern road safety – engineering, education, enforcement and emergency response.
A parallel event of ideathon thrown open to the technology community and public at large has elicited 150 proposals. The most promising among these will be taken up for further evaluation, post the hackathon.
