Rock on RHoK Toronto

We are super fond of hackathons in the TinEye HQ so when we heard about Random Hacks of Kindness Toronto was gearing up for its bi-annual event in June, we decided to land a hand as a sponsor. TinEye will be hosting RHoK Toronto for the opening night and we are excited to welcome you all in our TinEye HQ.

What is Random Hacks of Kindness?

Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) is a joint initiative between Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! NASA and the World Bank. The objective is to bring together subject matter experts around disaster management and crisis response with volunteer software developers and designers in order to create solutions that have an impact in the field.

“RHoK’s model starts from identifying, defining and refining problem definitions provided by subject matter experts and local stakeholders. This ensures that volunteer time is focused on solving real problems for real people.”

The mission here is of course to make the world a better place. :)

RHoK has hosted 4 global events to date, in 45 cities around the globe with over 4000 participants. During the RHoK 4 global event in December 2011, over 120 problems were addressed by 110 technology solutions. Solutions developed by the RHoK community have been used by organizations such as the World Bank, governments, emergency responders, and citizens.

As RHoK Toronto was gearing up for its bi-annual event on June 1-3, we took a peak at their planning ahead of the event on June 2nd. The first evening was the Pitch Night and Design Jam evening on May 15th which was held at Bento Miso a Queen West co-working space for tech and game developers. We listened to a number of pitches from participants. Each pitch was followed by a Q&A which allowed further definition of the problem to be solved and a bit of a dive into the issues at hand, and perhaps what an ideal solution would be. At the end of the pitch presentations participants joined the pitch (or problem) they were most interested in solving.

At the end of the evening the following problems (projects) were defined:

  • a platform to record, transfer and review ultrasound images from remote areas in Nepal. This will allow doctors and trained nurses to review ultrasound images with the aim to reduce maternal mortality rates in remote Nepalese areas.
  • Microcollaboration for journalists: InvestigateNet. This project would see the creation of a web based, social-enabled tool to help journalists anywhere – even with limited access to basic information technology — to collaborate and gain access to fundamental information, and foster deeper collaborations in the process.
  • Water Voices:   – a 3-part project that aims to improve First Nations access to water and sanitation through a geo-spatial water database, voice-to-SMS integration of the SMS platform and an open source CMS.
  • Interactive mapping platform to overlay apartment inspection data in the city of Toronto with user and organization contributed data to engage communities and  in campaigns for fair housing and to expedite repairs.

Register to attend RHoK and to view the schedule and follow @RHoKTO. We are looking forward to seeing the application roll out of production on Sunday!

RHoK Schedule:

Friday June 1st, 2012 – Reception!

Join us on Friday night. You will meet judges, participants, special guest and will get an opportunity to hear about the projects you will be hacking on during the wekend.

Where: TinEye 223 Queen St. E., Toronto, ON, Canada M5A 1S2

6-9pm: Meet & Greet with other participants (refreshments will be served)

Main Event! Saturday June 2 – Sunday June 3

Where: Centre for Social Innovation, Annex location: 720 Bathurst St, Toronto ON (see map here)

Saturday June 2nd, 2012

  • Registration & Breakfast: 9:00 – 10:00am
  • Introductions: 10:00-11:00am
  • Hacking: 11:00am- 5:00pm
  • First Day re-cap: 5:00pm
  • Hacking & GameChangers Social: 6:00pm-9:00pm

Sunday June 3rd, 2012

  • Breakfast: 9:00 – 10:00am
  • Hacking: 10:00 am -3:00 pm
  • Pitch Competition and Judging (and prizes!): 3:00pm-5:00pm

[RHoKERS photograph (c) Bento Miso]