On Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015, The Diaspora Day of Civic Hacking will gather technology evangelists and community leaders across four cities and three countries to devise innovative solutions in support of organizations that empower diaspora communities around the world. The event is organized by tiphub, the business accelerator and consultancy that supports seed stage technology and social impact ventures in Africa and the African diaspora.
Aimed at leveraging the ingenious of the African diaspora to counter social issues, DDCH will bring together a mix of technologists and thought leaders to spark transformative economic, social, cultural, and political change. Over the course of the day, attendees will segment into teams in which they will develop plans and hacks to counter technical challenges on behalf of the 2015 DDCH featured organizations: Asante Africa Foundation, Afrika Tikkun, The Peace Corps, BudgIT, The Dream Defenders, United Negro College Fund. Upon completion of the event, the projects will be supplied to the featured organizations to review in addition to being uploaded to our open sourced portal where visitors can access the hacks to ignite change within their own communities around the world.
DDCH attendees have the option of mobilizing at one of the four DDCH featured locations or may activate locally within their own communities. Participating locations include:
- iLab Strathmore University in affiliation with Sankalp Africa Summit – Nairobi, Kenya (event headquarters)
- HubAccra – Accra, Ghana
- DC Hive in affiliation with Impact Hub and Eastern Foundry – Washington, D.C.
- Opportunity Hub in affiliation with Georgia Tech University – Atlanta
Although the challenges are the same globally, each location has an uniquely designed agenda.
In Nairobi, event goers will listen in on insights from Intellecap Foundation’s Nisha Dutt, executive director, head – global consulting & research in addition to meeting local leaders from the Asante Africa Foundation.
The Atlanta leg is hosted in partnership with the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Africa Atlanta Initiative and features speaker Matilda Arhin, president of the Ghana International Chamber of Commerce.
Washington, DC participants will meet Gary Scotland, senior program manager Africa, Small Business Assistance Fund and representatives from the Peace Corps and UNCF while Accra registrants will participate in a half-day TechCamp, an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Office of eDiplomacy.
Designed as a series of technology-focused capacity building workshops, TechCamps work in cities around the world to pair leaders in the technology community with entrepreneurs and local organizations to provide them with training, resources, and assistance to harness new and emerging technologies to build their digital capacity and increase their ability to solve challenges.
“The globalization of technology has enabled us to intermingle new notions with traditional structures for real-world impact,” says tiphub co-founder and marketing director Amanda. “Tiphub is delighted to spark a trans-Atlantic conversation and facilitate the transmission of ground-breaking ideas through cross-continent collaboration.”
The Diaspora Day of Civic Hacking is free and open to the public. To register, please visit CivicHacking.tiphub.org. Stay tuned for updates and announcements by following hashtag #DiasporaHack.
