NextDayBetter, a social enterprise based in New York City and focused on Philippines-themed entrepreneurship and innovation, is holding a Hackathon at Toronto’s Project: RHINO for Typhoon Haiyan victims in the Philippines.
As a result of the unfortunate chaos that struck the island country in Southeast Asia, a group of developers, designers and social entrepreneurs will gather at the Project: RHINO co-working space for a two-day hackathon. All proceeds will go towards relief efforts in the Philippines. The hackathon will happen from Wednesday- Thursday.
Hackathon participants will be tasked to envision, prototype and build web and mobile apps to help with the relief and
rebuilding process in devastated areas in the Philippines.
“A global movement of charitable hackathons has already mobilized around the world to build and deploy web and mobile apps to play a helpful role with relief efforts in the Philippines.” said lead organizer Renjie Butalid. “We’re building on this momentum from cities that have already hosted hackathons, including New York City, Paris, Manila and Cebu, and we’re bringing that level of energy, enthusiasm and open source creativity to Toronto to help rebuild the Philippines.”
The international tech community’s response to Typhoon Haiyan hasn’t been silent, particularly in Canada. Last week we had the pleasure of covering A Thinking Ape’s response, in which the Vancouver startup pledged $100,000 to the Red Cross. Announced that all proceeds in a 24-hour period from certain in-game purchases from two of its popular games would go to the typhoon victims.
Meanwhile, also last week, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander told CTV that his department is fast-tracking hundreds of visa applications, and that number could rise as more people affected by the storm are identified.
Typhoon Haiyan, The Phillapines second deadliest typhoon on record, killed nearly 4,000 people and left 11,000 homeless. It was the thirtieth named storm of the 2013 Pacific typhoon season.
According to Next Day Better, Typhoon Haiyan has made it clear that “we cannot simply rebuild what existed before”.
“When it comes to the sustained long-term rebuilding process of the regions affected by natural disasters, we need to be thinking different this time around, making sure that communities are resilient enough to rebound from future storms.”
And whatever the Toronto startup community can provide in terms of monetary value is clearly needed at this time. Interested in joining? Sign up here.