UWI girls dominate ICT hackathon

LAST month, two teams inclusive of eight young women from The University of the West Indies (UWI) participated and placed in the top three of the International Telecommunication Union’s second annual Girls in ICT Day Hackathon.

Simultaneously held in Jamaica, Barbados, St Vincent, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, the Jamaican component, staged by SheLeadsIT in partnership with Change Makers Development, saw 20 girls’ teams gathered at the Mona Visitors’ Lodge to vie for prizes.

The two teams from the Caribbean School of Media and Communication (CARIMAC) and the Department of Computing at UWI were required to, in eight hours, develop a range of products using their technical skills in animation and gaming, podcasting, video production, mobile app and web development and geo-spatial technology under the theme #safegirlssafefuture. They were also required to develop a business pitch surrounding the product they created.

The CARIMAC team, which comprised Alana Nelson, Adalia Mayers, Jodi-Ann Dyer and Toni-Ann Tapper, was inspired by their experience as students at UWI’s Western Jamaica Campus and having to find ways of navigating the current state of emergency in Montego Bay. As a result, the girls proposed a mobile app called “Walk Good” which aimed to inform young women of the safest routes and methods of transportation.

The app invited users to comment on the level of safety of areas they frequented, as well as to comb through local news reports, police press releases and other forms of accessible data they hoped would be able to rate the level of safety of areas in and around Montego Bay. The app would also provide users with a list of various transportation providers (buses and taxis) sorted by their level of safety. Users would also be able to see which of their friends within their social network were nearby and travelling to a similar destination so that users could travel in groups.

The team from the Department of Computing, which comprised Kimberly Simmons, Stephanie Ramsay, Komoy Haye and Jhanelle Thomas, created a game that followed the character Pearl as she grew up, and showcased the different forms of abuse she faced. Different levels of game simulated different scenarios, and the player was given opportunities to respond to these scenarios and the game would then offer feedback on their responses. For example, a level has a young Pearl witnessing her father beating her mother and offered the player the choice of trying to intervene, calling for help or hiding. Based on the user’s response the game offers feedback — for example if they chose to intervene in the fight, the game might suggest that in such a scenario it would be better to call for help.

At various points the game also linked to a website which was created by the team and provided information on places of safety and various organisations abused women and girls could contact for help.

But for the young women, they were mostly inspired by the effort the competition placed on breaking barriers in a male dominated industry.

“Right through the process they showed inspirational videos of girls at various ages starting in ICT, and it showed that it was possible at any age to excel in such a career. For me it diminished the stereotype that comes with a female in ICT to say she is the assistant without knowing she plays a major role,” Dyer said.

Said Tapper: “It encourages a lot of young girls to have an idea and go to different fields; it fosters analytical thinking. Girls don’t really gravitate to those things, so I like the encouragement it fosters. It’s not sexist but it’s letting you know you can have a role too.”

“In my field I’ve had the experience of classmates saying there’s always a pretty girl in computer science looking to get help. This competition shows that as women you don’t have to resort to [seeking help from] a man. The videos we saw showed girls with visions from a young age who were able to turn them into something big and show that they belong in this important aspect of society,” Simmons said.

In terms of sustained development of the area, the young women called for investors and greater utilisation of young people with vibrant ideas.

“I wish for them to have more competitions like these. We are in the 21st century, and we depend heavily on technology. We are seen as third world, but competitions like these will help us to hone our skills and develop our own stuff,” Dyer said.

Nelson added: “In addition, we need investors. We can discuss the benefits of our app and our colleagues from computing’s app but we need the capital and buy-in to make these become reality. We have people with money willing to put it to something good, we just need to find them and have them find us and get these wonderful ideas off the ground.”