Mytour's CEO participates as a judge in UNICEF Mobile Hackathon

CEO Do Thi Thuy Hang, from Mytour, a platform for online hotel room bookings, recently joined the panel of judges for the UNICEF Mobile Hackathon programming competition.

The UNICEF and mLab Mobile Hackathon concluded successfully, with top prizes awarded to two teams: Cuccung.vn and OCEAN4. Around 100 app developers formed 31 teams from various provinces and cities in Vietnam to participate in this event.

The 2013 Mobile Hackathon focused on two main challenges: 1) The 1000-Day Journey of Life, aimed at improving access to information, healthcare, and nutrition services for women from pregnancy to when their child turns 2; and 2) Responsible Tourism for Children, aiming to build a responsible and child-friendly tourism community. The winning app development teams for these challenges received prizes of 10 million VND for first place and 5 million VND for second place.

For the first challenge, team Cuccung.vn won first place, and team ITEK NOT won second place. For the second challenge, team OCEAN 4 won first place, and team NEWWAY won second place. mLab and Nokia committed to allocate an additional sum of money ranging from 120 to 140 million VND for conditional development awards to support the winners or participating teams in further developing software solutions for UNICEF during the research and development phase. Additionally, Nokia Vietnam will sponsor the free distribution of software to users regarding health and nutrition services.

Regarding the program's implementation idea, it is known that in Vietnam alone, there are 130 million mobile subscribers, accounting for 139% of the population, with over 60% of them residing in rural areas. The rapid development and high coverage of the telecommunications network have increased the number of mobile phone users in these communities. Commonly used daily apps include mobile apps and messaging.

UNICEF and mLab's Hackathon aims to develop trial mobile software applications for widespread free distribution via open-source platforms for relief workers, social workers, and mobile device users, primarily those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. If these mobile apps are successfully tested in Vietnam, they could be scaled up in the Asia-Pacific region, where there are over 3 billion mobile subscribers, representing 82% of the population, demonstrating significant effectiveness.

“UNICEF Vietnam is willing to collaborate with the mobile software development community to seek innovative solutions to long-standing issues. We believe that the power of creativity will help address major challenges and improve the lives of millions of Vietnamese people,” said Lotta Sylwander, UNICEF Representative in Vietnam.

Another member of the judging panel, Do Thi Thuy Hang, CEO of Mytour – a global hotel booking system founded by Vietnamese individuals – expressed her admiration for the participating teams. “The youth are very dynamic and passionate. Although most ideas presented are still in their infancy and require further discussion for practical implementation or broader deployment, within such a short period, the teams have demonstrated teamwork, concentration, and some have shown strong technical skills, producing very good products. After the competition, the Mytour Community Investment Fund will reach out to some teams to further explore investment opportunities and resource allocation for them,” shared Hang.

As planned, all teams with the highest scores from the judging panel will focus on upgrading their products, continuing to implement their ideas over a four-month period with hopes of receiving larger sponsorships as committed by some investors through the mLab Mobile Hackathon Vietnam 2013 Organizing Committee.

About mLab

– mLab is the Mobile Application Innovation Center for the East Asian region led by the government and enterprises, deployed in Ho Chi Minh City in September 2012.

mLab is sponsored by infoDev, a global program of the World Bank supporting technical and creative enterprises. The center is financially supported by the Government of the Netherlands, in collaboration with Nokia.

mLab East Asia aims to transform the region into a hub for mobile application innovation with the goal of increasing valuable employment opportunities and addressing economic and social needs.

***

Source: Mytour Travel Handbook – Techdaily.vn