Malaga Hackathon

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Service 1: Supporting Migrants to check if their vehicle is complaint for the Clean Air Zone (CAZ)

Implementation of creation: ASAP
Registration opening: 14th December 2020
Registration deadline: 8th January 2021
Hackathon event: 21th, 22th, 23th January 2021
Contacting the winners: 3rd February 2021

WHY

In 2018, Spain became one of the leading recipients of refugees and migrants in Europe. Each year, thousands of migrants continue reaching to Spain seeking safety and opportunities. While some leave their home countries to get a job or an education, others escape from persecution or human rights violations such as torture. Millions flee from armed conflicts or other crises or violence. Some no longer
feel safe and might have been targeted just because of who they are or what they do or believe – for example, for their ethnicity, religion, sexuality or political opinions. In these cases of persecution and serious human right violation, they seek protection in another country.

Seeking asylum is a human right, so everyone should be allowed to enter another country to seek asylum. Despite that Spain and the European Union have clear protocols for applying for asylum, many migrants do not know where to find and how to navigate this information. Even when they do find this data, it is not always available in their native language.

Many migrants with strong cases for asylum severely struggle through the journey, leading some of them to avoid or drop out at some point of the process as they do not understand the procedure to apply successfully. A tool that simplifies a migrant’s ability to access and follow correct information about the asylum process, will ease the access to the protection they seek.

By participating in this hackathon and helping us build this tool, you and your team will be part of the solution for one of the greatest humanitarian challenges of our time.

Malaga Migration Hackathon is part of easyRights, a European H2020 project with a simple goal: to combine co-creation and AI technology to make it easier for immigrants to understand and access the services they are entitled to.

Bringing together immigrants, the public sector and private organisations, easyRights will develop a platform to provide personalised, context-aware information to its users, taking into account background, demographics and language skills. The platform will support immigrants in their search for responses for different needs in a manner that saves time for both migrants and for social service staff and cutting costs for the public administration.

The easyRights platform is being developed and deployed in four pilot locations (Birmingham, Larissa, Palermo and Malaga).

WHO

SPOKESPERSONS: Numerous experts will inspire the teams in their hackathon journey. Humanitarian organization leaders, migrant communities representatives, politicians, and tech experts will spark the event with their own experience and connection with the challenge and/or potential solutions.

MENTORS: Our skilled team of mentors will guide the work of the participants. Their multidisciplinary covers a broad spectrum of sectors: from politicians to communication experts, including data engineers, migration or public service experts, among others.

PARTICIPANTS: The hackathon is open to approximately 20-30 participants. We truly believe in diversity and collaboration to find meaningful and context-rooted solutions. Therefore, regardless of their background or nationality, the participants we seek should respond to the broad (and specific) description of visionaries, developers, designers, marketers entrepreneurs, engineers, migrants & field experts.

PARTNERS: We are inviting several local entities to participate in the hackathon. These intities include the City of Malaga and the Red Cross.

PROCESS

TEAM FORMATION: We encourage you to form your own team with the people you know you work better with

register as individual or together with your group
the platform for registration is Eventbrite
established in a Facebook Groupto facilitate the group formation for those who register individually, a discussion group will be formed
teams must be formed at least 10 days before the event

HACKATHONS: Fully online, the intensive 72-hour will provide the collaborative and engaging environment to transform solution ideas into prototypes.

POST- HACKATHON: After the hackathon, the easyRights technical team will accompany the IT departments of the existing services and the winners of the hackathon for the following months to guide and ensure the adoption and implementation of the Hackathon winning solutions in the city council service provision.

The winner will conduct a 5000€ contract, that must be used to further develop the project, in collaboration with easyRights technical team and the municipality of Málaga.

MALAGA MIGRATION HACKATHON

Paving the way for easier integration

Implementation of creation: ASAP
Registration opening: 14th December 2020
Registration deadline: 15th January 2021
Hackathon event: 21st, 22nd, 23rd January 2021
Contacting the winners: 3rd February 2021

Spanish version of the website

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WHY

In 2018, Spain became one of the leading recipients of refugees and migrants in Europe. Each year, thousands of migrants continue reaching Spain seeking safety and opportunities. While some leave their home countries to get a job or an education, others escape from persecution or human rights violations such as torture. Millions flee from armed conflicts or other crises or violence. Some no longer feel safe and might have been targeted just because of who they are or what they do or believe – for example, for their ethnicity, religion, sexuality, or political opinions. In these cases of persecution and serious human right violation, they seek protection in another country.

Seeking asylum is a human right, so everyone should be allowed to enter another country to seek asylum. Despite the fact that Spain and the European Union have clear protocols for applying for asylum, many migrants do not know where to find and how to find this information. Even when they do find asylum data, it is not always available in their native language.

Let’s join forces to provide the needed support and missing tools to empower migrant communities to receive the safety and protection they seek. By participating in this hackathon, you and your team will be part of the solution for one of the greatest humanitarian challenges of our time.

THE CHALLENGE

Many migrants with strong cases for asylum severely struggle through the journey, leading some to avoid the service or drop out at some point of the process as they do not understand the procedure to apply successfully. A tool that simplifies a migrant’s ability to access and follow correct information about the asylum process, will ease the access to the protection they seek.

Therefore, the main challenge you will address during the hackathon is the creation of an innovative and feasible solution to break down the language and information barriers around the asylum-seeking procedures. The result will allow immigrants to more easily understand and execute their rights when applying for asylum.

*Language barriers include the fact that much of the asylum application process is in Spanish or in only a limited number of other languages. If migrants could access this information in their native languages, they will be able to more easily navigate the process (both online and offline).

**Information barriers cover knowledge regarding the steps, timeline, documents, offices, etc. that the process will entail. Many immigrants struggle to find this information, which results in slow responses and interactions with the system. Furthermore, information barriers also include references and connection to other rights and services that migrants are entitled to but are not aware of, like education enrollment (for school-aged children) or the use of the healthcare system.

THE ORGANISER

Christar International, BIC Euronova, and the City of Malaga are the main organizers of this hackathon.

Christar International is an innovation organization that addresses global social challenges through collaboration and ideation. Christar International’s vision is to transform communities by implementing durable solutions through innovative means.

BIC Euronova, the European Business Innovation Centre of Málaga (BIC), is a public / private company that is part of a European network of more than 250 public and private entities that supports the creation of innovative companies, and promotes the development of the regions.

GOALS

We have organized this challenge to answer the most common challenges that immigrants face here in Spain. Namely, the easy access to correct information regarding the process for applying for asylum and the lack of information on the process in an immigrant’s native language.

By organizing this hackathon, we hope to gather a community of partners, teams, and participants with a passion for creatively solving one of today’s greatest challenges. Our goal is to build a tool that helps refugees and immigrants more easily access their rights and protections here in Spain while more easily integrating into life in Europe.

PROJECT CONTEXT