Despite challenges in meeting due to COVID-19 restrictions, the second round of easyRights Hackathons was deemed an interactive success. The 72-hour intensive event was designed to provide a collaborative and engaging digital environment to transform technical solutions from ideas to prototypes. In particular, the main goal of the Hackathon was to find a solution that improves the experience of migrants – as well as others – that deal with the complex bureaucracy around issuing a birth certificate in Larissa. Three teams participated in this second-round Hackathon from 3 different geographical areas in Greece. A panel of judges for each stream awarded a 5.000 euro prize for the best-developed idea in a very well- attended virtual meeting.
During the three days of the second Larissa Hackathon, participants needed to think differently from their usual routine. In order to improve an accessible and migrant-centered service that can positively impact the process for registering a child's birth, participants must provide it with three already-existing technologies that focus on the language and bureaucratic barriers migrants generally encounter when interacting with a service. The solution should integrate at least one of these technologies (Capeesh, CALST, Pathway Generator) to address some of the specific problems associated with the Registry of a Birth procedure.
Despite the limited time available, we were astounded to learn that all the solutions offered proposed strong answers to prevalent challenges. The panel of experts announced a winning team that developed the solution with the best potential in terms of accessible and migrant-centered service. Furthermore, this success demonstrated to us that the presence of the Hackathon provided value in terms of igniting the creative spirit and the degree of involvement.
Congratulations to everyone who organized, supported, judged and above all those who participated.
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