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Developers Unite to Hack for Social Justice

This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: Azure Developer Community Blog articles.

 

Over the course of 8 weeks, developers gathered virtually to participate in the Microsoft Azure Hack for Social Justice event. The hackathon challenge statement was straightforward: design and build an application prototype that uses Azure to address a social justice issue. Participants were given access to Microsoft technical mentors, dedicated Azure environment, and self-paced learning resources. Although technology alone cannot solve complex societal issues, our hope is that participants will develop solutions that can help empower communities and drive change.

 

Over 500 participants registered for the hack, 300+ were from the U.S., and 6 winning projects were selected. Check out these creations:

 

1st Place : Equitable Restroom Access for Gender Non-Conforming 

Created by: Mahesh Babu () 

Provides safe restroom access for transgender, gender non-conforming, disabled individuals, and parents traveling with kids to find restrooms per their needs.

Azure Services Used: Azure Functions, Azure SendGrid

 

 

2nd Place: GetPro

Created by: Amina Fong (), William Broniec (), Zechen Lu () 

Web app that centralizes information and professional resources for underrepresented populations to help even the playing field in educational and career opportunities.

Azure Services Used: Azure App Services, Azure SQL Database

 

 

3rd Place: Legal Helper Bot

Created by: Murtada Ahmed

Not knowing the law and ones rights can expose already vulnerable groups to more discrimination and abuse. Legal Helper Bot was created to change that.

Azure Services Used: Azure Bot Services, Azure Storage

 

 

Honorable Mentions

Racial Bias and Score Prediction of COMPAS Score

Created by: Yuki Ao () 

Inform people of the racial bias in the U.S. Justice system and give the offenders a chance to know their score level beforehand.

 

TutorFirst

Created by: Farhan Mashud (), Isfar Oshir (), Mohammed Uddin () 

App for low income students to receive free, high quality tutoring from tutor volunteers.

 

Feminist Action Board

Created by: Aroma Rodrigues () 

Subscribes to a news API to provide real time news on gender violence and tracks organizations, petitions, and initiatives

 

On behalf of the Microsoft U.S. Azure team, I'd like to sincerely thank all of the participants, and congratulate the winners on a job well done. Also, thank you to the mentors and judges who volunteered their time to give back to the community. 

 

Next up: check out these new hackathons that are open for registration

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