Sanitation Hackathon

The project involved:

• Consultations with communities on sanitation sector needs;
•  Iteration with subject matter and technology experts to define problem statements;
• Two-day hackathon events held simultaneously in 40 cities around the world, with over 1,000 mobile app developers participating; and
• Over 700 concepts identified with 70 teams registering on the Sanitation HackatHome website - 10 finalists were chosen.

The Sanitation Hackathon follows the model of the Water Hackathon, which was organised by the World Bank Group in 2011, and which involved nearly 1,000 registered IT professionals at 10 global locations in the development of apps for improving delivery of water services.

Through the website, potential participants read problem statements that define opportunities for innovation in the sanitation sector, contributed in the months preceding the hackathon by the global community. Projects responding to problem statements were uploaded and categorised and appear on the website. A Sanitation Commons Wiki was created for contributions of content to a shared resource.

A sampling of apps includes the following:

"One of the new apps developed over the weekend, called “'Mapsh,' could enable the government of India to more easily verify communities that have achieved open-defecation free (ODF) status, for which villages are rewarded as part of the country’s Total Sanitation Campaign. Mapsh is designed to use a mobile crowd-sourcing tool to assist in the verification process of ODF communities. Other apps tackled behavior-change challenges to sanitation and hygiene problems, such as using mobile educational games to begin changing the attitudes and practices among children related to handwashing.

Another app developed over the weekend is an SMS [text messaage]- and location-based system that tracks pit latrine/septic tank-emptying in Accra [Ghana], which will help improve the efficiency of the collection process and the accountability of the disposal process (tracking of truck movements and illegal dumping)."

Environment, Natural Resource Management, New Technologies.

The top 10 finalists' apps, in alphabetical order, are:

• "Empowering Girls monitors girls’ school attendance to track appropriate sanitation facilities.
• LION Sync provides decision-makers with access to real-time data online and offline.
• LooRewards promotes sanitary behavior by rewarding safe sanitation practices.
• mSchool monitors the status of water and sanitation infrastructure in schools.
• mSewage crowdsources the identification of open defecation sites and sewage outflows.
• San-Trac reminds users about hygienic practices and gathers real-time data for trend analysis. 
• Sanitation Investment Tracker tracks investment and expenditure in sanitation at the household level.
• SunClean teaches sanitary and hygienic behavior through games for children.
• Taarifa enables citizen reporting and tracks decision-makers’ feedback.
• Toilight finds toilets in a smart and easy way."

The grand prize winners are:

1. "mSchool, developed by Manobi, a mobile and internet services firm headquartered in Dakar, Senegal, is an SMS reporting tool that enables students, parents, and teachers to monitor and report on school sanitation facilities. mSchool maps all complaints, and contains a back-end dashboard that enables the Ministry of Education, regional governments, and civil society to track when and where complaints are made - and if they are met.
2. Sun-Clean, developed by a team of students at the University of Indonesia, is an app designed to teach children good sanitation and hygiene practices in an entertaining way. The Sun-Clean app, includes two games: Disposal Trash and Hand Wash for Kids. 
3. Taarifa, created by a team of developers based in England, Germany, the United States and Tanzania, is an open source web application that enables public officials to tag and respond to citizen complaints about the delivery of sanitation services. It includes data collection, visualization and interactive mapping functionality in addition to a back-end data management tool."