Hajj Hackathon — The one for the record books!
It’s kind of late, but I had to catch up with a lot of work after participating in the Hajj Hackathon. That broke the Guinness World Record for the most software developers participating in a Hackathon. With the record being set at 2950 participants.
The hackathon was centered around solving problems related to different aspects of the annual Hajj pilgrimage. With participants attending from all over the world trying to solve them.
My team HajjConnect was no different. We built a smart band for pilgrims and a mobile-app solution for Hajj operators that reduces the chances of pilgrims on the move from getting lost and provides other essential conveniences along their journey.
It allows the Hajj guides to keep track of the pilgrims in a certain radius and get notified if their guests wander away from the group, thus preventing them from getting lost, even when offline. Additionally, it can be used as a payment method. Pilgrims can set a limit on their daily spending, and top-up the credits with their guides when needed.
It was designed around the existing operation and infrastructure of pilgrimage without requiring major behavioral changes from the users.
Although our team’s goal was to have fun building something, which we did. We still managed to make it to the semifinals. Which came as a nice surprise.
Honestly, it was an exhausting 3-day endeavor with little to no sleep and lot of technical issues that needed to be solved. But, it was worth it.
It was also great running into all the different members from Facebook Developer Circle: Jeddah who were participating in the Hackathon. We managed to put on a small meetup for them on the last day. And even had some teams from other countries drop by.
I think the best part of this hackathon was the impact it had on the local Saudi development community. Which will be felt for a long time to come.
If you were at the Hajj Hackathon, feel free to reach out to me and say hi.
