Developers From Around The Globe Help Solve Humanitarian Issues

In Argentina, the initiative will be hosted by Globant

November 16th, 2010 - - On December 4 and 5, in over a dozen locations around the world, Google, Microsoft,The World Bank and Yahoo! will host Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK), their progressive initiative that brings together volunteer software developers and experts in disaster risk management for a weekend-long “hackathon” to create software solutions that can help mitigate or respond to disasters around the world and help save lives. In Buenos Aires, the Hackathon will be hosted by Globant, the leading Latin American Company that creates innovative software products for global audiences. 

This is the third RHoK event the partners have hosted since 2009 and the locations will include Toronto, Canada, Aarhus, Denmark, Berlin, Germany, Bangalore, India, Jakarta, Indonesia, Nairobi, Kenya, Lusaka, Zambia, Bogota, Colombia, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, Buenos Aires, Argentina and also Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Seattle in the U.S.

“We’re trying to use technology to make the world a better place,” said Todd Khozein from SecondMuse, RHoK’s operational lead. “The event gives hackers the opportunity to use their skills for a noble cause with the guidance of experts who understand the real world challenges.”

“For us it is great initiative, since we have the opportunity to give back to the community doing what we do best: coding. We are excited to host this hackathon and to see the innovative solutions that come up after the weekend“, says Guibert Englebienne, Globant CTO and Co-founder. “We have a lot of talent in the country so we are confident that we are going to have an excellent outcome”. The Argentinean company is the operational partner of the Buenos Aires´ hack, hosting the event at their offices in Costa Salguero (Rafael Obligado 1221, 2nd floor).

The first RHoK event was held in Mountain View, California in November 2009 and resulted in applications that were later used on the ground during the devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. The second RHoK hackathon was held simultaneously in six countries around the world in June 2010 and one of the winning applications from the Washington D.C. event - a tool that allows engineers to easily visualize landslide risk to help guide urban and rural development and building planning - is already being piloted by the World Bank in the Caribbean.

For more details and registration, see the Random Hacks of Kindness website at http://www.rhok.org/events/rhok-2/buenos-aires-argentina/ .

How does it work?
RHoK organizes hackathons—marathon hacking events with multiple global locations bringing together developers from all over the world to hack on real-°©‐world problems. We work together with subject matter experts from around the world to define and refine some of the biggest disaster risk challenges facing humanity, turning them into concrete problem definitions. At every RHoK hackathon, the problem definitions are shared with the RHoK community, and the developers work their hacking magic to create open source software solutions that respond to those problems, make the world a safer place and save lives. A RHoK hackathon is a fast-°©‐paced competition where software developers have a set amount of time to solve challenges they are given. At the end of a two-°©‐day marathon of hacking, a panel of experts will review each hack and the winners will walk away with prizes and the opportunity to see their applications put to use on the ground to respond to critical disaster risk challenges.

About Globant
Globant is one of the international leaders in the creation of innovative software products that appeal to global audiences. Globant combines a rational blend of Open-Source with proprietary software, which brings flexibility, mitigates risk and ultimately reduces costs. Aiming to foster IT education in Latin America, Globant has launched Testear, a program that trains in Manual Testing young people from vulnerable sectors. Globant is a privately held, privately funded company headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina with offices in Tandil, Córdoba, Chaco, Rosario and La Plata in Argentina, Palo Alto, Austin and Boston in the United States, Montevideo, Bogota, Santiago de Chile and London. For more information, visit www.globant.com