RHoK Princeton concluded with a demo session at noon on Sunday. I was impressed by the quality of each and every project that was hacked on- it is not usual at hackathons to have every project be so impressive in its ideation and execution. A special shout-out to the awesome Center for Information Technology and Policy at Princeton for making this event possible and so much fun!
Please see below for project descriptions:
- Access TeleMed: The goal of the system is to provide a way to treat a patient in a remote location, or in a location where there’s no doctor available. This can be achieved by using Telecom to facilitate medical consulting.
- VoiceCrowd: Distribute the effect of a public announcement system or megaphone over many cell or smart phones distributed in many public locations. The purpose is to enhance the effectiveness and distribution of information or media in physical public/private forums to individuals who intend or do not intend to receive information and have no prior association or methods of communicating with the source of the information. Additionally, feedback and location awareness for social networking mechanisms can enhance the appropriateness and comprehension of the information.
The initial applications of this system are as a virtual distributed public announcement system (PA) and the other as a distributed megaphone. This could be used to relay emergency information, enhance the effectiveness of protesters, enhance the reach of public speakers/performers, enhanced law enforcement or emergency personnel crowd interaction, find missing people in a crowded area and location aware crowd dispersion guidance. Social media and mapping mechanisms could also enhance the outreach and longevity of each event using the VoiceCrowd system.
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PITCH_Africa Water Map: PITCH_Africa is a non-profit organization based out of Princeton that designs communal rain harvesting systems using shipping containers. In this project, we plot annual rainfall data (by country) on a heatmap. You can click on a country for graphs of a more detailed breakdown of rainfall by month, as well as predicted water levels for a proposed reservoir. There are three choices for reservoir size, and the number of people drawing water from the reservoir can also be varied.
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DUMA UI revamp: DUMA is a social enterprise that provides high-speed networking for job opportunities over an text-based system in Kenya. During the hackathon, the group completely revamped its user interface.
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BeneTag: BeneTag is a new ecosystem where products do not die when they leave the store front- the BeneTag on your product takes you to its BeneTag page which tells you more about where the product was made, what went into making it, the working conditions it was made in, and for some companies, even something about the person who made it! BeneTag not only creates a more personal connection between the consumer and the producer of the product, but also promotes ethical buying by showcasing the conditions a product was made in.