The Sanitation Hackathon 2012 is a worldwide project supported by multitude of organisations including UNICEF and the World Bank. Hackathon events took place simultaneously in 12 cities around the world. At the London Hackathon (Dec 1-2 2012), Cranfield students joined civic technologists in developing projects that address challenges facing the sanitation sector. They worked in three projects – developing tools such as a sanitation business “dashboard”, a utility for quick financial sustainability checks, and a mobile phone application for uploading sanitation data.
Ben, Armel, Julien (Community Water and Sanitation MSc) and Georgos (Environmental Engineering MSc) were involved with a project team developing a planned and sourced a free dashboard tool, and prototype latrine emptier location app. The team were tackling a project challenge set by Steve Sugden (a former Cranfield CWS MSc student) from Water for People. Sample dashboards were generated, displaying such data as the size of the potential sanitation market in Blantyre, Malawi. GoogleFusionTables and GoogleCharts were recommended to WfP as free tools. A prototype app -'LatrineSurfer'- was developed to capture the geolocation data and customer telephone details at a point of latrine emptying. This included a simple and cost-effective automated customer feedback method.
Matthew, Uta (CWS) and Azhoni (Water phd student) worked together with Team Fresh Sh!t on a quick financial sustainability check app. The app will be a quick and easy way for practitioners to check chances of sustainable sanitation by comparing life-cycle costs with desired service levels.Team Fresh Sh!t started on a collaborative app development journey and it does not stop here. During the WASHCost Calculator project, which is starting now, IRC will work towards developing a number of tools that make it easy for practitioners to analyse and collect data on life-cycle costs.
Marion helped develop the reporting tool "Upraise my loo" on sanitation facilities and associated financial expenditures to build, operate and maintain them. The information will be gathered via a mobile phone application, feed via the web into a database. Data from the database will be presented visually (maps) as well as in tables. The mobile application will be used to report data on sanitation investment via a simple form. Data to be collected will include the type of latrine, the number of users, the name of the owner, its components and the cost of each component (including the pit, the sitting/ squatting device and the superstructure), the primary building materials and the nature of the suppliers, the anticipated emptying frequency and associated expenses.
The eventual winner of the event was the “Upraise my loo” project. The prize is use of the Hub Westminster for the team to take their ideas further and hopefully develop a viable and sustainable model.
For more information see: http://www.sanitationhackathon.org/london
http://www.flickr.com/photos/londonsanhack
http://www.flickr.com/photos/londonsanhack/8236841815/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/londonsanhack/8237910986/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/londonsanhack/8236837225/in/photostream
Benjamin Kirley
No comments:
Post a Comment