TEAM ‘SMOKE’ on Sunday emerged winner of this year’s Ministry of Public Telecommunications’ Hackathon, when the three-day Information Technology (IT) challenge concluded Sunday evening at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.

Rayon Hunte, the leader of ‘Team Smoke’ said he was not surprised when it was announced that his team won, because of the hard work they invested on creating their software. Hunte added that himself and his teammates made sure that they followed the defined rules, which he believed resulted in their win.

“The rules were clear, we were able to code towards that and I think that was the major part of our success, the fact that the rules were clear, and we were able to work towards the goal,” he stated.

Jairo Valverde, Resident Representative, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), who gave brief remarks to the gathering on Sunday evening at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, expressed immense pleasure with participants of the Hackathon programme and highlighted the fact that they were several female programmers who participated in the challenge.

“I am very pleased to return to see the outputs of what I understand must have been a gruelling but exciting 24hrs for our participants. I am especially happy to know that there are teams that included female participants. I am told that in the past the Ministry executed a highly successful ‘Guyanese Girl Code’ programme; this is a positive sign that, as we move forward, there will be many more skilled women who will participate in these challenges,” Valverde stated.

Six groups of programmers from across Guyana were tasked with creating software or an Application which aims to strengthen evidence-based decision- making in the areas of crime and violence by improving data collection systems within 24 hours.
The wining team, ‘Team Smoke’ was awarded with a contract from the UNDP to further build their software.

Valverde stated that UNDP is looking forward to working with the wining team of Hackathon 2019, to develop a crowdsourcing platform to capture reports on crime, including gender-based violence, across Guyana.

Also speaking at the gathering was the head of department of Industry and Innovation, Mr. Lance Hinds, who announced that another Hackathon Challenge will be held sooner rather than later in February 2020, and urged persons who are interested in programming to participate to not only develop their skills but to further develop Guyana’s technology skills.