Top IT professionals, developers and designers converge for the Globe-powered “hackathon” by PS-PhilGEPS
As a staunch supporter of the Philippine government’s drive to institutionalize transparency in its transactions, Globe Telecom hosted the recent #KabantayNgBayan: Procurement Hack. It gathered top developers, “data gurus” and designers in a competition to ideate potential applications or “apps” to help Filipinos understand and monitor the government’s procurement process, match government needs with prospective bidders and assemble a history or track record or previous bidders.
Held at its corporate showroom at the Valero Telepark in Makati City, the “Hackathon” was the result of the collaborative efforts of Globe, the Procurement Service and Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PS-PhilGEPS) as well as Open Data Philippines to harness the potential of information and communications technology or ICT in promoting government transparency, and increasing public awareness of the procurement process by way of a “hack” marathon-competition where participants can create apps inside 24 hours to solve a particular challenge.
Developers, programmers, designers, researchers and information technology experts in groups of three to four converged for the “Hackathon” to create web-based and mobile apps intended to facilitate efficiency in bidding and open up the procurement process to the public. They were provided with ultra-fast data connections as well as a conducive work environment to assist them in creating innovative apps from government data.
“Globe is one with the Philippine government in its quest to promote transparency and accountability to its citizens. By way of our collaboration and participation to the PS-PhilGEPS ‘hackathon,’ we are encouraging opportunities for our best ICT talents to take part and in this endeavor,” said Globe Vice President for IT-Enabled Services Group Rey Lugtu.
“As with our previous ‘hackathons,’ the Procurement Hack aims to promote civic participation in national affairs. By bringing together different sectors, the hackathon provided a platform for collaboration among various groups—government, the private sector, civil society, and international partners. It is also in line with the Aquino administration’s commitment to tuwid na daan and to reforms in public expenditure,” said Presidential Spokesperson Sec. Edwin Lacierda, in a statement.
Globe executives led by Head of Device and Customization for myBusiness John Bibal and Head of Products, Service and Delivery for IT Enabled Services Group Michael Sy shared their IT expertise as members of the panel who rated the app submissions. Globe Labs, the developer community of Globe Telecom, also provided a technical workshop for the application program interfaces’ SMS, voice, charging and location based-services.
Out of 22 teams which produced web-based and mobile apps, the Gold Prize went to Team PewPew’s MetroLitrato, a crowdsourcing mobile app which helps track the progress of government infrastructure projects by collecting photos from citizens and displaying them in a timeline. Team SillyWalk’s Market Snitch, a market research tool aiming to help facilitate the creation of accurate budget estimates based on current market prices was good for the Silver Prize. Rounding up the winners with the Bronze Prize was Rod Coronel’s Transparent Procurement which feature projects open for bidding via Facebook, Twitter, and email. All three groups took home cash prizes as well as other gadgets and peripherals. In addition, they will closely work with PS-PhilGEPS to further improve their developed apps.
