Africa’s Talking are thrilled to unveil an exceptional event engineered to revolutionize the landscape of government operations: the Open Hackathon centered on devising Tourism and Culture Solutions, This dynamic event invites tech enthusiasts, developers, and innovators to design groundbreaking solutions aimed at enhancing developments in the tourism and culture sector. This hackathon will bring together developers, designers, entrepreneurs, and cultural enthusiasts to create innovative solutions that showcase the richness of African heritage, promote sustainable tourism practices, and deliver seamless experiences for visitors. Explore the intersection of technology, travel, and culture, and be part of shaping the future of Africa's tourism industry. 

Africa's Talking play an integral role in creating technologies that can help preserve and digitize cultural artifacts, traditions, and indigenous knowledge. These APIs, which are CPaaS and Telecommunication APIs, can be utilized by public administration systems to facilitate and promote sustainable and eco-friendly tourism, such as tools for carbon footprint tracking or responsible travel planning. Africa's Talking APIs will be at the core of our hackathon, providing tools to seamlessly integrate communication and AI-driven analytics into your solutions. Africa's Talking APIs will enable real-time SMS, Voice, Chat, Mobile Data, Airtime and USSD communication between citizens and tourism professionals and cultural experts to provide personalized recommendations and information to tourists. Meanwhile, Together, Africa's Talking technologies will empower participants to develop innovative, effective solutions that pave the way for innovations in the Tourism and Cultural Sector. Join us to harness these powerful APIs in our quest to revolutionize tourism and cultural settings!

Challenges:

• Culture and Knowledge Preservation: Preserving and digitizing cultural heritage and indigenous knowledge using technology, 2G and AI tools.

• User Experience and Engagement: Improving visitor experience and engagement at cultural sites and attractions using technology tools to take in and record feedback, help in navigation, offer guides, etc.

• Tourism Best Practices: Promoting sustainable and eco-friendly tourism practices using modern tools to enhance tourism and cultural practices such as embracing sustainable technology practices and features, among other solutions. 
• Data-driven Insights: Enhancing tourism infrastructure and operations through data-driven insights from AI-generated and AI-based tools, as well as building systems to use the data to offer suggestions, guidance and improve tourism and cultural practices. 
• Personalization: Developing personalized and accessible tourism services and information for tourists and users in the tourism space to curate personalized experiences and improve user experience.

Target Attendees:

• Software Engineers: Professionals skilled in coding and software development, capable of translating complex problems into innovative software solutions.
• Data analysts and data scientists: Data scientists and analysts who are passionate in solving day to day problems which present progressive development while addressing human challenges. 
• Tech Innovators: Individuals or teams with a passion for leveraging technology to solve complex problems.
• Government Employees and Officials: Their participation can help ensure that the solutions developed during the hackathon are practical, feasible, and aligned with the government's needs and processes.
• Sector Professionals: Tourism and hospitality professionals as well as Cultural heritage experts and enthusiasts who can provide more insights on the challenges in the Tourism sector.
• Policy Makers: Decision-makers interested in evidence-based policies to improve provision of government services.
• Engineering Students and Academics: Young minds and scholars keen on contributing fresh ideas to the fields of government, engineering, and technology.

Objectives:

• Enhance the Visitor Experience: Develop innovative solutions that create engaging, immersive, and personalized experiences for visitors at cultural heritage sites, museums, and other tourist attractions.

• Preserve and Digitize Cultural Heritage: Leverage technology to preserve and digitize cultural artifacts, traditions, and indigenous knowledge, ensuring their safekeeping and accessibility for future generations.
• Promote Sustainable Tourism: Design solutions that foster sustainable and eco-friendly tourism practices, reducing the environmental impact and promoting responsible travel.
• Optimize Tourism Operations: Leverage data analytics and IoT technologies to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of tourism infrastructure and operations, such as traffic management, resource allocation, and service delivery.
• Enhance Accessibility and Inclusivity: Create technologies that make cultural and tourism experiences more accessible and inclusive, catering to diverse needs and preferences of visitors.

Prizes:The winning solutions will receive cash prizes:

• Winner: $100
• 1st Runner-Up: $50
• 2nd Runner-Up: $25

Agenda:

9:00 AM - 9:30 AM: Warm-Up

• Introductions
• Team Formation (if needed)
• Feedback Session
• Feature Requests

9:30 AM - 1:00 PM: Building/Hacking

• Code on GitHub/GitLab/BitBucket
• Deploy in Docker/Automated CI/Travis CI/Bamboo
• Note: Additional setup may be required

1:00 PM : Lunch

1:00 PM - 5:00PM: Building Continues

• Code on GitHub/GitLab/BitBucket
• Deploy in Docker/Automated CI/Travis CI/Bamboo
• Note: Additional setup may be required

5:00 PM - 7:30 PM: Demonstration and Wrap-Up

• Teams or individuals will demo their projects for feedback or potential adoption

• Note: Please bring your laptop

Opportunities:

• Networking
• Innovation
• Access to Talent Bench (Job and Gig Opportunities)

New to Africa's Talking? Get started here.

Developer Documentation (We welcome feedback)

Submit your Idea:

• Hackathon idea submission form

Gigs:

We would love to reach out to you so that you can build for our customers, please fill out this form with details to ensure we have your details:

GIG/HACK DEVELOPER PORTFOLIO FORM

Join community channels:

Slack & WhatsApp:

• Join Africa's Talking slack community here
• Join Elarian Slack community here

Please follow us on Twitter handles to:

• @AfricasTalking
• @ElarianHQ

You can get our videos, recaps, and event interviews on our youtube channels, subscribe to get updates:

• Africa's Talking Youtube Channel
• Elarian Youtube Channel

Africa's Talking community allows developers to learn skills for the modern-day African Developer. We are language and framework agnostic. All developers are welcome. This is where Africa's Talking developers community meets to build, learn and exchange knowledge.

We are helping software developers and businesses to bring their ideas to life through easy-to-use APIs quickly.

Would you like to partner with us? Kindly contact the Developer Experience Team.