Terrific TadHack held
FAIRLAND – Numerous coders come together to make Africa a better place.
It was an exciting weekend for computer and software enthusiasts at the annual TadHack conference at the MTN buildings in Fairland.
Chief information officer of MTN, Benjamin Marais said that about 100 coders participated in this event, which was held from 14 to 16 October. They could either participate as a team or as an individual.
TadHack is a global hackathon where developers or coders come up with solutions to solve problems in South Africa.
Over this weekend, the global TadHack took place in 28 countries with about 2 500 participants who registered, making it one of the biggest hackathons.
“Our theme is Decoding Africa,” said Marais. He added that global TadHack would be awarding a thousand dollars to the overall winners of each country. “The developers can also help to come with ideas to help with issues that MTN is currently facing.” MTN also had a team entered.
TV screens streamed the global event to all the other countries.
“This hackathong is so important as people can realise that it not always necessary to import ideas from other countries, we can come up with it here,” said Marais.
This year’s winning team, MobiMoola, came up with the idea to pay for products and services with customers’ airtime. The girl coder of the weekend award went to the young 13-year-old Naledi Phafane from Pretoria.
Judges included well-known journalist, Derek Watts; editor-in-chief of Stuff magazine, Toby Shapshak; freelance journalist and blogger, Nafisa Akabor; chief customer experience officer of MTN SA, Ideshini Naidoo and junior business architect at Dimension Data, Stephanie Cowper.
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