WB partners with Google, telcos in ‘sanitation hackathon’

MANILA, Philippines - The World Bank (WB) has joined hands with local telecoms firms, software developers and the Google Developers Group in staging a two-day “sanitation hackathon” aimed to find simple and practical mobile phone applications that could help solve the country’s sanitation problems.

A hackathon is an intensive brainstorming and programming marathon that draws the talent and initiative of software developers in producing applications that can be used in real-life solutions.

The two-day activity, which ends today, was simultaneously staged in Makati, Davao, Cebu, Zamboanga, Baguio and Bacolod.

Aside from the Philippines, other countries that took part in the hackathon were Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Tanzania, South Africa, Senegal, Peru, Finland, the United Kingdom and various cities in the United States and Canada.

According to the World Bank, there are now more than five billion mobile phone subscribers in the world, while 2.5 billion people worldwide still lack access to improved sanitation, including 1.1 billion individuals who have no facilities at all, and still defecate in the open.

“With the number of mobile phone subscriptions exceeding five billion, more people today have access to a mobile phone than to a clean toilet. The ubiquity of cell phones in the developing world creates an opportunity for mobile technologies to offer solutions to sanitation challenges,” the World Bank said.

In the Philippines, the number of mobile subscriptions is expected to reach 117 million by the end of 2016, according to a Business Monitor International (BMI) report.

“This event (hackathon) has the potential to meet the needs of the poor since the majority of the population now have access to mobile phones and Internet,” said Ousmane Dione, WB sector manager on Sustainable Development Unit.

Dione said the economic costs of not having adequate sanitation in the Philippines is estimated to be about 1.5 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or about $1.4 billion.

Meanwhile, Michelle Santos, developer relations manager of Globe Labs, said the mobile phone applications would also enable the public to monitor government sanitation projects and help enforce accountability, like reporting on non-functioning public toilets.

Santos said mobile phone applications that range from the simple short message service for analog phones to content-rich applications for smartphones could help bolster the government’s sanitation drive by providing an accessible platform for information and education.

She said mobile applications could range from information tools that could educate the public on the proper installation, use and maintenance of toilets, to providing a platform for citizen feedback and even data gathering.

She said the applications to be churned out in the two-day hackathon would be further developed and tested for field application.