The Presidential Office yesterday said that it is to host a social innovation hackathon, starting tomorrow, in a bid to seek solutions to societal problems by using open data from Taiwan.
Registration for the nationwide President’s Cup Social Innovation Hackathon opens tomorrow, Presidential Office spokesman Sidney Lin (林鶴明) said, making the announcement on International Open Data Day.
The purpose of the hackathon is to figure out how best to use open data made available by the government to solve major societal issues, Lin said.
The issues targeted are disaster prevention, public health, youth employment, the aging population, the social welfare network, the environment, energy, transportation and tourism, Ambassador-at-Large Chen Jen-ran (陳正然) said.
The hackathon reflects President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) prioritization of social innovation, said Chen, who is an independent director on Chunghwa Telecom’s board of directors and one of the main planners of the event.
Registration and initial proposals are to be accepted from tomorrow until March 23, after which 20 teams would be chosen to build on their ideas and carry out a live demonstration, he said.
Two more reviews would take place to narrow the field from 20 to 10, then five finalist teams would present their ideas to Tsai on June 2, after which a winner would be chosen, Chen said.
There are no limits on age, background or number of participants per group, he said.
Further details are available on the Chinese-language Web site https://presidential-hackathon.iii.org.tw/.
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