Duo #1632 have emerged as the winners of the 2019 edition of TADHackJHB, held at MTN’s head office in Fairland, for their solution CharOn – a cell tower protection app.
The theme for the 2019 global TADHack was: “Localised and Contextualised – Battle of the Bots”. Participants in the TADhackJHB, which MTN has hosted since 2016, were required to develop technology solutions to address challenges facing communities in South African townships. #1632 pocketed the prize of $1 000 for their winning solution CharOn, which allows individuals to report suspicious activity within the vicinity of cell towers. If the app collects enough data of the same case being reported, authorities will be notified.
“Hackathons such as the TADHack serve as an invaluable incubation hub where innovative and scalable solutions that address some of the socio-economic challenges are created. At MTN, we are proud to provide young people with the platform to showcase their creative talent and to leverage the power of technology to develop home-grown solutions. We believe that by supporting initiatives such as TADHack, we are contributing positively to the growth and development of the app development industry, and we are positioning our youth to play a meaningful role in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” says MTN’s Executive: Information Technology, Phinda Ncala.
This year’s edition attracted 200 participants making TADHackJHB the largest location globally with a high number of participants who submitted 47 projects vying for the top prize.
TADHack runs simultaneously in more than 30 locations and encourages young creative minds to build solutions to problems using telecoms and other Application Programming Interfaces (API).