God did amazing things at Indigitous #HACK Singapore last month.
We had 6 local challenges worked on by 8 teams. In total, we had in total about 90 people that participated over the 3 days. They came from 47 churches and represented many different organizations. The event was sponsored by various companies and ministry partners and supported by 9 churches and ministries.
All of our projects were exciting, but two received special recognition. The judges gave recognition to Salvation Army’s #TacklingSuicide for “Best Impact” and Tamar Village’s #Redlight projects for “Best Tech.”
The #TacklingSuicide team developed a chat bot that is able to “speak with you” when you’re sad or depressed. The chat bot can also automatically redirect you to a real-life person (counselor) if the conversation escalates.
The #Redlight team created a platform called #HearMyStory that uses AI and web-crawling technologies to discover key words that girls, pimps, or potential customers might use to sell/buy sex. It has the potential to disrupt or dissuade sex trafficking activities and rescue the girls.
#HACK Singapore was an amazing time for all of us. One of the most exciting things, though, is that the work is still going on. Some people are continuing to meet in their free time to work on the projects they started at #HACK. These are people inspired by God to use their talents for Him in the digital space!
I had everyone who attended #HACK Singapore take part in a brief survey. Here are some of their comments about #HACK Singapore in their own words”
What motivated you to join #HACK?
- “Doing something outside of work for Jesus and it’s Digital!”
- “Meet like-minded people to use our talent to advance God’s kingdom together”
- “Deep desire to serve Christ”
- “Use my background and skills in digital media for God’s kingdom”
- “My skillset for the mission field”
- “Mission-driven”
- “Forward thinking projects”
- “Coming together to solve problems for the kingdom of God”
What’s the best part about #HACK?
- “Learning experience and collaboration with team”
- “The ideation, solutions, people!”
- “The people and community”
- “Finding people who are like-minded”
- “Learning more about current state/problems mission agencies face”
- “Strategic design thinking, working with the team with common mission and vision”
- “An emphasis on creating solutions…to fulfill the Commission and love people”
RUN
Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. (Habakkuk 2:2)