Gender equality calls for a hackathon in Bengaluru
The latest stop in our Editors Lab series took us to Bengaluru, for a hackathon focused on developing new ways to fight for gender equality.
The Global Editors Network & Deccan Herald organised a hackathon in Bengaluru 14–15 April 2017.
The Bengaluru Editors Lab is part of GEN’s series of journalism hackathons which includes local events in Mumbai and in Delhi. The theme for this hackathon was ‘fight for gender equality’.
Why do Feminist Journalism?
The Ladies Finger co-founder Nisha Susan joined the hackathon for a presentation on gender representation and equality and, how to better report on these topics, as well as explaining her magazine’s mission. She showed the participants some of the topics The Ladies Finger are trying to address: the misrepresentation of women and women’s issues in mainstream reporting.
The Ladies Finger was founded in 2013 with the goal of reporting on everyday news through a gendered lens. It seeks to intervene in national and local debates about gender and sexuality and to firmly establish that rape, as it is currently addressed, is not the end of the story. The magazine has a strong will to tell stories about women’s lives, which are not necessarily heroic or tragic.
Nisha Susan also stressed the importance, in relaying stories about women, to tell the history of contemporary feminism and to document a feminist history, many feminist histories in fact.
Fighting for gender equality, one prototype at a time
The teams from 101 Reporters, Citizen Matters, Deccan Herald, Factor Daily, Fields of View, Hidden Pockets, The Hindu, India Water Portal, The Ladies Finger, Prajavani, Your Story got to work, and after two days of intense brainstorming and prototyping, they had five minutes to pitch their final idea and prototype in front of the jury.
List of prototypes presented
101 Reporters – ‘Crime Map’ is a data visualisation showing crimes committed against women, to allow citizens to make informed decisions on when and where they are travelling.
Citizen Matters – ‘She, the Leader’ is a website that will facilitate the empowerment of women corporators through public engagement and crucial intervention and a hyperlocal content creator.
Deccan Herald – ‘Source FIRST’ is a dashboard gathering and analysing data from multiple sources to help journalists make their gender related stories more probing.
Factor Daily – ‘Uncleji Meter’ is an online quiz widget that invites users to take a fun personality quiz so that they can decide where they fall on the “Uncleji Meter”.
Fields of View – ‘Potli — follow our money’ is a community portal tracking Gender Responsive Budget, exposing how much money the country spends on women.
Hidden Pockets – ‘BANG BANG’ is a game that will talk about sexual and reproductive health issues in a fun and interesting way through the character of Suraksha, the journalist warrior.
The Hindu – ‘The Single Sisterhood’ is an interactive tool shedding light on the relatively difficult life that single women face in India — and some of the life choices they have.
India Water Portal – ‘Alphabite’ is a tool to assist journalists, reporters and writers in writing articles that are gender neutral. The goal is to build a library of words and phrases that could tilt the gender balance in articles.
The Ladies Finger – ‘AfterRape’ is a non-linear, interactive resource on what to do after the first 48 hours after rape that will be hosted on The Ladies Finger — an Indian feminist magazine.
Prajavani – ‘Breaking Down Confusions on Gender Neutrality’ is an informative portal sharing facts on gender neutrality, with a focus on the third gender.
Your Story – ‘KANYA’ is a tool which will enable editors to discover women entrepreneurs who otherwise would not be found through formal reporting.
And the winner is…
After careful deliberations, the jury composed of Zainab Bawa from HasGeek, Thejesh GN from DataMeet, Gautam John, Director of Philanthropic Strategy and GEN’s Sarah Toporoff crowned the team from Factor Daily as the winner of the competition in Bengaluru. Their project ‘Uncleji Meter’ is an online quiz inviting users to take a fun personality quiz so they can decide where they fall on the “Uncleji Meter” — ‘Unclejis’ are, for the most part, elderly men (who as a demographic) are suddenly very active on social media, especially WhatsApp and, who love to share sexist jokes.
The Factor Daily team said of their win:
“We can’t believe we won. We are really happy that we were able to bring this idea to life, so people understand how ‘Uncleji Meter’ works and actually take the quiz. It was very important for us from the beginning that it was not just an idea, a concept, but to complete the prototype during this hackathon. Also, the chemistry within our team worked perfectly: we could understand each other so well, what we were trying to do, what we were trying to say. It was the perfect example for us of great teamwork.”
Jury member Gautham John said of his experience at the Bengaluru Editors Lab:
“We the jury are really happy about how clearly articulated the prototypes were, the problems the teams tried to solve and how very specific the participants were about them. We like that the use of technology in most of the prototypes was very focused on addressing one particular problem.
It was very difficult to pick one winning project out of the great slate of prototypes that emerged form this hackathon, as the level in Bengaluru was really high. We would love to see many of these prototypes become actual projects or products, because they have the power to the power to lead to change.”
Special mentions were awarded to The Ladies Finger for their prototype After Rape and to Fields of View for Potli-Follow Our Money.
All the projects developed during the Editors Lab in Bengaluru are listed here.
Read more about the Bengaluru Editors Lab — All the pictures here
The Bengaluru Editors Lab was presented in partnership with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Hacks/Hackers India and the International Center for Journalists with the support of the New Venture Fund for Communications. Special thanks also to The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) for their partnership.
