Following the success of the Techfugees hackathon in Melbourne and Sydney, it's Brisbane’s turn!

TechfugeesBNE Hackathon will bring together developers, designers, entrepreneurs and community members to develop creative tech solutions to help refugee and assettle into the Queensland community.

Former refugees and asylum seekers who have already settled in Australia will participate in the event to help teams deeply understand opportunities and challenges faced by new settlers and co-design solutions.

Leaders from the tech community will mentor teams through the weekend. On Sunday afternoon, teams will pitch their solutions to a judges panel of tech and community leaders.

The event will be hosted by our sponsors at RiverCity Labs in partnership with Marist180, MDA Ltd, Access Community Services, Multilink, Australian Red Cross, Welcome to Australia and Urban Informatics Research Lab @ QUT Design Lab.

Come make a difference, have some fun, learn a lot and help to welcome refugees to the Queensland community. 

Looking for inspiration on what to work on over the weekend? Check out the Techfugees Hackpad for projects that need help!

Follow us on social media to keep in touch and find out more:

Like us on Facebook @Techfugees Australia

Follow us on Twitter @TechFugeesBNE

#Hack4Refugees

 Food and Coffee will be supplied during the event  

About Techfugees

Moved by the plight of refugees in Europe, a number of technology industry people have formed a voluntary team to create the series of non-profit “Techfugees” conferences, hackathons, and work with a global network of collaborators.

Today there are now over 2,000 members of Techfugees, demonstrating a huge desire amongst the tech community to get involved with this issue.

Our events are entirely non-profit, designed to bring together tech engineers, entrepreneurs and startups together with NGOs and other agencies in order to address the crisis in ways where the technology world can bring its considerable firepower.

Team Size: Minimum of 4 - Maximum of 6

During our welcome event on Friday evening 17 March 2017, we encourage you to team up with individuals with different skill sets (software, design, product dev) and work on a challenge that everybody wants to solve. 

We have posted a link to the Problem statements and check the Techfugees Hackpad for projects that also need help!

We have some great mentors too  (Watch this space!)

Requirements

You need to submit by 12:00pm on Sunday 19 March. Be sure to include the following:

1. A team name
2. A team icon, image, or logo
3. Upload the proposal onto DevPost before 12:00pm on Sunday 19 March 2017
4. Post source code (if any) to github
5. Deliver a five minute pitch to judges and allow five minutes for Q&A

Problem statement themes 

Disability access and support
The inability of people with a disability to know about and access support.

Employment
Lack of recognition of qualifications; lack of work references and Australian employment experience.

Entrepreneurship
Lack of ability to access support to become familiar with systems, knowledge and networks to start own business in Australia.

Food security
Lack of income for many asylum seekers and refugees on low incomes is a daily issue for prioritising seeking employment, transport, children’s needs and food

Health
Many refugees and asylum seekers experience chronic illness and yet are unaware of the range of medical services to support them.

Housing
Insecure housing as a result of limited income, overcrowding, exploitation acts as a major barrier to the successful long term settlement for people.

Language
Without English proficiency or access to interpreters, refugees and asylum seekers are disadvantaged yet only some categories of visas are allowed to access the maximum of 510 hours of English classes.

Legal system
People at the time of arrival cannot be expected to know all the elements of Australia’s legal system and may break laws here that did not exist in their home country.

Migration advice
Access to skilled and qualified legal advocates is critical and yet, as a result of demand, is not available to everyone seeking asylum.

Qualifications
The lack of recognition of skills and qualifications gained overseas wastes the lives of refugees and asylum seekers as they are unable to work in their area of expertise. Australia’s productivity is also disadvantaged.

Tracing to Family Reunion
The dramatic increase in global migration has led to rising numbers of families being separated along perilous routes through diverse countries

Translating and interpreting
Without access to interpreters, refugees and asylum seekers with limited English are unable to negotiate systems, access services or understand critical information about themselves and yet funding for interpreting services is diminishing and many people are not offered access.

$600 in prizes

Please register at http://rcl.li/TechfugeesBNE17

We need Hackers, Hipsters Hustlers and Humanitarians to form teams. We are also looking for volunteers to help facilitate during the day and make sure the event runs smoothly. You can register as a volunteer on Eventrbrite. 

We have posted a link to the Problem statements and check the Techfugees Hackpad for projects that also need help!

If you are looking for a pitch deck, here's what the Techfugees folks in Sydney used 

It will help if you create a profile on DevPost before the start of the Hackathon (you will need a profile before submitting your ideas)

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Agenda

Friday 

Saturday 

Sunday

• Product/Market Fit
  Who is your customer (Refugee/Service Organisation etc)? How well does the product fit the needs of the problem the team chose to tackle? How user-friendly is the technology? Is it a complete solution, or do they still have a long way to go?
• Potential Impact
  How much impact (quality and quantity) could the solution have?
• Creativity/Innovation/Wow Factor
  How innovative/creative/unique is the hack? Does the hack employ a new/novel approach to solving the problem?
• Feasibility & Sustainability
  What are your barriers to entry or user adoption? How are you addressing those challenges? What is your rollout strategy? Is it scalable and self-sustaining?
• Accomplishment & Learning
  How much did they accomplish in the weekend? Did they demonstrate learning from mentors to help inform a better solution? Did the demo test core assumptions?
• Team Pitch
  How well did the team explain their solution? How well did the demo communicate the idea?