BTNG Hackathon 2018: Day 2
Hacking running elections in Nigeria
Day 2. Aka presentation and demo day. Aka the day we see the results of what the teams have been hacking on. Aka the day we announce the winners. Check out day one here if you have not seen it yet.
A bright and early Sunday 8am start. Team members start to trickle in and settle in on their tables hacking away on their ideas from day one and discussing the logistics of their presentation in the afternoon. A full house by lunchtime and preparations are in full swing as each team crafts the words of their presentation whilst lending their ear to what the judges are looking for.
To kick-off the presentations, teams were called to the stage in alphabetical order of the title of their idea/solution. The teams presented to the audience and the three judges (Feyi, Tom and Emem).
The eight presentations for the BTNG Hackathon 2018 are as follows:
One
Team Name: Mojiyo
Product Name: Mojiyo
Solution: Empowering Citizens to be Election Monitors
To increase transparency and provide better accounts of the events happening at polling stations and beyond, Mojiyo’s solution provides individuals the ability to send live updates of what’s happening in their vicinity via SMS. You can try it out here.
Two
Team Name: ETHVote
Product Name: ETHVote
Solution: Blockchain Voting Platform
ETHVote aimed to solve Voter turnout, Limitations of the current voter ID and bank accredited, biometric systems, voter fraud and results tampering etc by empowering INEC (the Nigerian electoral body) with a blockchain platform to run a smooth and transparent election- Specifically by using Solidity’s smart contract published on Ethereum’s Ropsten network. Check it out here.
Three
Team Name: Grounded
Product Name: MyVoteMyWay
Solution: Making voting safe and accessible using mobile phones without the internet
Team Grounded presented a solution centered on solving the issues of safety, violence and accessibility and information provision. The product MyVoteMyWay allows you to vote from anywhere (use case centered on voting from home) by using USSD to facilitate the voting process. Voters can cast their vote anonymously on their phone using their PVC, BVN and password. The system allows for real-time automated tally, so that voters knows their vote counted.
Four
Team Name: 9JA
Product Name: Naija RealTime
Solution: A real time board that publicly shows the progress of the elections with real votes
Facing the issue of transparency, credibility and integrity, team 9JA’s solution provides citizens to monitor and track the votes for every election in real time. Naija RealTime’s application would be the defacto monitoring platform and people can access the information via any screen including smartphones.
Five
Team Name: Freedom Fighters
Product Name: Oju
Solution: Empowering voters to keep each other safe
Freedom Fighters provided a solution that tackles political unrest, instability, violence, rigging, fraud, safety problems as well as unlawful acts. The product Oju is a crowdsourced platform that empowers the community in any local government area to create and consume trustworthy reports of threats during elections. It is primarily done via a smartphone with a live feed of video, images and text. You can check it out here.
Six
Team Name: Coll@te
Product Name: Coll@te
Solution: Portal for Exit polls and Electoral Information
Using the UK’s Exit Polls implementation as an example and inspiration, team Coll@te’s idea provides a portal for people to get an estimated view of the election results by collecting the required information from voters (anonymously) as they exit the polling stations. The exit poll portal, through the use of statistical models, can be useful to predict the outcome of elections hereby increasing transparency and integrity. Check out their presentation here and try out the product here.
Seven
Team Name: #FaceVote
Product Name: FaceValidate
Solution: Voter verification using Facial Recognition
Team #FaceVote aimed to tackle voter fraud specifically identity fraud by using artificial intelligence to verify the age of voters before they vote. There have been numerous occurences of polling units using under-age individuals to vote for a candidate and the team built FaceValidate to solve cases like that. Using a smartphone with AI and facial recognition, officials can scan faces of individuals before they vote to identify and cross-check information provided against the individuals voters card. You can try it out here.
Eight
Team Name: Team Debt
Product Name: Vota
Solution: A voter fraud prevention platform for Nigeria
Vota is an online web app that enables eligible voters to vote from location in Nigeria. This increases accessibility, provides a safe environment (e.g. your home) for people to vote and increases security and credibility. The solution’s main focus was on mobile access which increases the number of people likely to vote and provides automatic counting of votes from manual methods. You can check out their project here.
And the winners are… Drum roll please
1st Place
Team Name: Freedom Fighters
Product Name: Oju
Solution: Empowering voters to keep each other safe
2nd Place
Team Name: Coll@te
Product Name: Coll@te
Solution: Portal for Exit polls and Electoral Information
People’s Choice
Team Name: #FaceVote
Product Name: FaceValidate
Solution: Voter verification using Facial Recognition
Congratulations to all the teams for their hardwork, dilligence and creativity in producing solutions for “Solving the problems of running successful elections in Emerging Economies”
To view the team members of each project or find out more information check out our Devpost site here.
We want to take this opportunity to thank our Judges ( Emem Rita Usanga, Feyi Fawehinmi, Tom Whitwell) for their incredible work, insights and review of each team’s idea.
We would also like to thank all the mentors and the resource team who came to the hackathon to help the teams and provide the much needed support the to produce incredible solutions
Finally we would like to thank our sponsors (Microsoft, Prognostore, Cchub, WeCode Stears Business and Bethnal Green Ventrures) and community member Simi Awokoya for helping us pull this through.
Special thanks to Nzube Ufodike for his huge support and commitment to making this event a success.
We are very proud of everyone who came through and we are thoroughly impressed with the outcome.
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