Use technology to develop mobile apps: Dr A Ravindra

BANGALORE, INDIA: After three days of hectic deliberations, the WaterHackathon in Bangalore gave some hope to the world that the water and sanitation problems can be solved if governments implement the right programmes in the right way.

An initiative of the World Bank, the hackathon brought together software engineers and water experts, who identified critical global challenges in water and sanitation sector, and presented their ideas. In all, 97 developers from 15 teams presented their innovations. Though every idea had something innovative, some ideas were adjudged the best by the jury.

So, the six winners of the Bangalore WaterHackathon were: Jugaad Sensors, Team PWX, Prithvi, S3V2K, PEEQ and Hackers For Change. And Parthiv Shah, 14, from Team PWX was the youngest developer at the event.

Impressed by their presentations, Dr A. Ravindra, adviser to chief minister of Karnataka, said the government is planning a water sustainability conference in Bangalore, the IT capital of India, where some winners will be invited to showcase their presentations.

Dr Ravindra further added that, he has plans to select one ward in the Bangalore city to implement and test the best selected application from the WaterHackathon as a pilot project to save water.

Showing serious concern to the rising problem, the government of India, Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) and development partners are willing to partner with developers to develop prototypes of the winning teams to convert them into full-fledged applications.

Dr Ravindra said: "As a government we were always blamed for lack of response. But now the technology is forcing us to respond."

He urged the developers to use technology to develop mobile apps to implement and address needs of water and sanitation and rain water harvesting.