Making your ride on public transportation more predictable, improving the way critical blood donations are collected, and using gaming to get young people excited about engineering – these were a few of the top ideas for using technology to serve BiH better that came out of this weekend’s 72-hour Hackathon. More than 65 students from across BiH teamed up for nonstop innovation, collaboration and competition at the Sarajevo Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Supporters and mentors, including Ambassador Cormack and tech business leaders from BiH and beyond, partnered with these young entrepreneurs to create online applications. Apps that not only impressed the IT professionals in the program, but are also all driven toward helping solve community problems here in BiH. After a tough selection panel Sunday, winners took home tablets, smart phones, and even special trips to Switzerland to meet with leading executives in the application-development field. The real winners though are all the communities and schools which sent these Hackathon participants to Sarajevo for the competition. Alumni of the Hackathon will now put their newfound skills to work, leveraging technology to solve problems important to them and their communities.
