Michal Sela Safe@Home Hackathon
The Michal Sela Safe@Home Hackathon is the first and only one of its kind in Israel to save lives and prevent domestic violence against women
The Michal Sela Safe@Home Hackathon happened for the fourth time, on the late Michal Sela’s 36th birthday, produced by the Michal Sela Forum and Google. The hackathon lasts for three days and end in a celebratory finals event at the President’s House, attended by Israeli President Mr. Isaac Herzog. Also this year, a special program called Nothing About Us Without Us was added to the hackathon, where women who have survived violence lead start-ups.
At the end of the hackathon, the top enterprises will get an opportunity to continue their participation in exclusive programs, the Startup Academy, as part of a holistic annual technological framework that aims to help with the continued development of the enterprises and turn them into viable technological products.
What is a Hackathon?
A hackathon is a high-tech event where programmers who don’t necessarily know each other meet and collaborate around a challenge posed by the hackathon staff. The participating programmers select a technological idea to solve the challenge, program the solution and accordingly team up with others whose skills meet the specific needs that emerge (either technological or content related). Throughout the hackathon, the teams sit together for many hours and intensively program technological products up until the product stage. The hackathon enables teams to receive guidance from mentors and various experts. At the end of the hackathon the technological products that were developed compete with each other.
Goals
Creating a new ecosystem of technologies to prevent femicide and domestic violence. At the hackathon center, planning, construction and development of life-saving technological ventures, thus leading a practical and innovative course that proves that there are solutions and that it is possible to defeat terrorism inside the home.
Target Audience
The general public is invited to participate in the hackathon in a variety of options:
- Entrepreneurs: Raising ideas for life-saving technologies.
- Team Member: participation as technology key team member such as programming, algorithm, building a marketing video for the project and more.
- Experts: Accompanying the various venture teams in areas such as: legal, technological consulting, domestic violence and more.
- Other: function such as mentoring or technical staff.
Challenges
The Michal Sela Hackathon wants to solve and defeat the problem of domestic violence against women, and to save lives. At the hackathon we will develop solutions for sub-challenges that come from different yet related directions and angles: challenges from the angle of the victim, the attacker, the immediate surroundings, and from the angle of the establishment and the authorities.
Stages
The general public is invited to participate in the hackathon. Before the hackathon, in the month of April, there is a special program nammed "Nothing About Us Without Us" open only to women and youth who have left the circle of domestic violence. This is not a mandatory step. This is a program in which women who survive violence participate in entrepreneurship and ideation workshops of the Michal Sela Forum and Google in collaboration with EY, and come up with technological ideas to save the lives of women trapped by violence in their homes. The best ideas are accepted for the hackathon and the entrepreneurial women receive a professional team and experienced programmers - for free - to build the project.
Nothing About Us Without Us is a unique program aimed at women and youth who have experienced violence first-hand or on someone very close to them (like a sister). The program includes Ideation workshops to come up with an idea for a technological solution to save the lives of women and their children who are trapped in domestic violence. At the end of the workshop, participants will get the opportunity to submit their technological idea to the Michal Sela Safe@Home Hackathon.