The team of Ranchi’s own Surya Remanan and Nidhiya V Raj, by the name of the Hacker Girls, won the Hackathon to Combat Gender Based Violence for their idea Suraksha Band meant to aid authorities to keep an eye on unsafe migration and human trafficking.
Organised by The US Consulate, Kolkata in collaboration with USA-based Geeks Without Bounds (GWOB) and The Bachchao Project from Bengaluru, the three-day event was meant to find solutions to gender-based violence and human trafficking through technological intercentions. The winning team and the runner-up Nanhe Kadam were selected for a six month accelerator programme run by GWOB.
The ideas pitched towards the end of the Hackathon on Tuesday were assessed by the panel of judges on the basis of usability, sustainability innovation and presentation skills. The solutions presented included data collection from newspapers, anonymous discussion forums, web portals connecting victims to services, online First Information Report registrations against child abuse, migrant worker job portals and building community support systems for survivors of domestic violence.
US Consul Craig Hall interacted with the teams on the first day of Hackathon to discuss and encourage the solutions presented by the teams.