On Friday Indigitous celebrated what God has done through #HACK2020 with the Global Presentation and Celebration. Over the course of the past two weekends, 1,088 participants from 141 cities and 29 countries have taken part in 90 missional projects. While all of those projects are honoring to God, six projects were selected by a panel of judges for special recognition.
Top Overall Project: SwitchOff plugin (Australia)
With the SwitchOff plugin, a team in Australia aims to help people discover life beyond the screen. The team took a survey of Australians and found that they spend an average of 4 hours per day on their phones. 72% of them want less screen time, but have trouble putting their devices away. By spending less time on their screens, they can spend more time cultivating their relationship with Jesus. The SwitchOff plugin offers time tracking, offline goal setting, analytics, tips & motivation, and accountability friends to help people put the devices away and enjoy time away from their screens.
“This is something that’s affecting the entire Kingdom of God and the whole world and so to tackle that was huge,” says John Dyer, one of the global judges. “The core idea is unique, the technology is ready, and we really hope it makes a difference in helping people realize their passion in what God has made them to do to be sometimes online but also be offline.”
Most Kingdom Impact: Hanap-Buhay platform (Philippines)
For those who are unemployed, depression and a feeling of being meaningless can set in. A team in the Philippines created the Hanap-Buhay website to help those who are job searching connect with Christian communities to help them grow professionally and spiritually. The platform offers both spiritual and practical help, everything from how to decide on your direction, to mentors and mental health experts, to job interview tips, to a listing of Christian organizations with job vacancies. A spirit of caring is felt throughout the website, which includes a Gospel presentation and an acknowledgement that true purpose comes from God, not a career.
“This takes two really important problems of joblessness and mental health and really looks at solving both of these at the same time,” John says. “We can get really down if we don’t have the right job. We love that Hanap-Buhay created a really simple and clear path to work through those issues and to share the hope of Jesus at the same time.”
Most Innovative: Simple SUKU Study Bible Maker (Indonesia)
There are 700 langauges in Indonesia, and the Bible is only available in 100 of them. To help increase biblical literacy and take the Gospel to where it’s not, a team in Indonesia developed a program to automate the creation of a customizable study Bible in tribal languages.
“I can see this being used for rapid creation of hundreds of different apps, maybe under a ministry banner, to reach all of those 700 languages in Indonesia, or maybe just a single ministry that wants to come along and say ‘here’s a non-technical user who can create a Bible app simply with just a couple clicks,’” John says.
This project also won one of the two People’s Choice awards, as voted by the #HACK2020 participants.
Most viable: Ro Bible Study Story App (USA)
This project targets an unreached people group that has been displaced from their homeland, now living in more than 30 countries. The majority of of this people group has smartphones and are active on social media. Because the language is small, there are no existing Bible app translations for it. To reach this group, a team in Chilandix (that’s a combination of Chicago, Orlando, and Phoenix) created an app that allows them to hear the Gospel in their heart language that is easy to understand. The app will include around 30 Bible stories made for Christians to be able to use to share the Gospel with that people group, but also for those who don’t know any Christians to be able to discover and learn from the content on their own.
“They’re able to make something that’s very customized and very targeted and also takes into account audio and visual learners,” John says.
People’s Choice: Gemenaye Vent Chatbot (Ethiopia)
A lot of people who are going through difficult times don’t have anyone to talk to, either because they don’t have close family or friends, or because they simply don’t feel comfortable talking about their issues publicly. A team in Ethiopia created the Gemenaye Vent channel on Telegram and an accompanying chatbot to allow people to share anonymously, connect with mentors, and build relationships as they grow.
Honorable Mention: AmongDevs Community Portal (Singapore)
A team in Singapore targeted game developers for their project, creating a community portal for junior-senior developer communities to form around game development. Many of those developers don’t know God. Through the community portal, those who don’t know Jesus can grow with others in the community, be discipled by mentors, and develop their technical competencies. Those mentorships would be key opportunities for their mentors to share the Gospel.
Join us in community
If you are inspired by these exciting missional projects, we would love for you to join us in collaborating on them further. Most of the projects don’t have a completed ready-to-market product, so if any of these projects interest you and you would like to help them move forward, reach out in our Slack community.