And The Winners Were... [New Full Review]

Thank you to everyone who put their time and energy into the UN Influx Hackathon, the first big event from the Influx Trust. All the pictures and video will be posted by Friday. Here's a summary in the meantime...

There were 20 pitches from the about 60 people who arrived for the opening night on Friday 20th February. From this we eventually had 8 teams sharing their propositions at the final presentations for a stellar panel of judges (L-R):

Tanya Laird (Digital Branding & Marketing Consultant), Elisa Peter (former head of the UN's NGO Liason Service), Harry Weber-Brown (Digital Strategy Consultant), Chris Cathcart (Industry Manager for Google), Ritula Shah (Presenter of BBC R4's The World Today), Lord Mark Malloch-Brown (former deputy to Kofu Annan), Lawrence Weber (Partner for Innovation at Karmarama).

Here is a summary of what the teams presented.

Tweet a Dream: A way for children to send in pictures and notes in order not to miss out the input of these 1.8bn people on the selection of the UN's next set of public targets after the Millenium Development Goals.

Dreamcraft: Using the millions of Minecraft (like digital lego) players to visualise how the UN works in a new medium, with a new audience and particularly recognised as a powerful way to explore alternative futures for the UN structure.

Which UN Country Am I?: This applies the popular phenomenon of Facebook Quizzes (e.g. Which pizza am I?). Checking your answers on 5 UN resolutions reveals which countries agree with you and shows what your country actually voted.

Global Prosperity Index: This was a way to bring in different sources of data to show a more holistic picture of development than the finacially focus GDP.

Rainmakers: This is a 'How's my driving?' sticker for UN interventions. Text based feedback from people in areas where the UN is active can provide independent and realtime information about the impact the UN is having, allowing the public to see for themselves if the UN is doing a good job.

Frontliners: The is a gamified platform to encourage discussion between frontline UN staff to and the public through setting each other challenges.

Demos: This software allows the UN and the public to write policies together, focusing on engaging the kinds of people who attend Model UN conferences.

We The Peoples: This builds on the existing 1in7 Billion campaign that aims to get the public challenging the selection of the Secretary General, something currently done behind closed doors by the 5 permanent members of the Security Council (USA, UK, FRance, China, Russia).

PRIZES

The winners of the technical Prize was... We The Peoples

The winners of the Heart Prize (most emotionally compelling proposition) was... Frontliners

The winner of the Head Prize (most logically compelling proposition) was... also We The Peoples

All winning teams received £500 and a bottle of champagne. Two more prizes remain to be awarded. The LIMUN prize will be selected by the 1700 delegates of the biggest model UN conference in Europe (LIMUN) taking place next weekend. The Traction Prize will be awarded to the project that has the most traction in a month's time (based on twitter activity and other factors).

Opening Session

Founder Max Kalis (top) introduces the event and the challenge. Ben Donaldson of UNA UK (below) explains the history of the relationship between the UN and the UK public.

The initial pitching session saw 20 ideas pitched to a room of 60 people.

Antonio Rebodao (Data Scientist, below) was one of our mentors during Saturday.

Getting Down To Work, the last people went to bed at 5am on Friday night and a few didn't sleep at all on Saturday night.

The teams pitching (below) at the final show. Just 3mins for each team with 3mins Q&A.

Teresa Murphy-Skvorzova (below) pitches for the Rainmakers team explaining an idea to visualise the impact the UN has in the areas it it working so the public can see for themselves whether the UN is doing a good job or not. It's an independent feedback initiative described as a ''How's my driving?' sticker' for the UN.

The audience and other judges enjoy seeing Lord Mark Malloch-Brown challenges the teams during the 3min Q&A for each team.

A quick reminder of the presentations for the judges and audience by UN INflux founder Max Kalis.

Harry (top left) & facilitator Klaus (bottpm right) wait for the judges to deliberate.

Harry Weber-Brown (Galvanise) summarises the deliberation and Chris Cathcart (Google) awards the technical prize to Zakaria Abushima.

Zakaria Abushima (everywhere else) revels is taking the technical prize in Oscars Award style. His coding was voted best by peer coders and everyone appreciated the effort that also went into the video he produced. The Frontliners team (bottom left) receive the 'Heart' prize for the most emotionally compelling proposition from Ritula Shah, presenter of BBC Radio 4's 'The World Today'.

Lord March Malloch-Brown awarded the 'Head' prize for the most logically compelling proposition went to We The Peoples who build a website that builds on the 1 for 7 Billion campaign that raises awareness that the Secretary General of the UN is appointed by just 5 states behind closed doors). Their site allows the public to suggest and vote on potential candidates for the top job at the UN.

Below centre, Cilia Li from our hosts and partners Venture Scout receives thanks for all their support. Jack Bowden is in the back ground shooting the video

Klaus Bravenboer from Hack Hummanity (in blue) & Dan Cunningham (in white) from Hack for Good receive thanks for facilitating the whole weekend.

Founder of UN Influx Max Kalis closes the event with thanks and a reminder than we still have 2 prizes to go; the LIMUN prize will be awarded a week later when the 1700 delegates at Europe's biggest model UN conference vote on their favorite and the 'Traction' prize for the project with the most progress a month later (based on twitter activity and other factors). All 5 prizes awaded are £500 from The Influx Trust, the charity that supports this work to 'explore digital opportunities for a better UNited Nations'.

The aims for this event are to gather enough evidence of the power of these events to get the support required for an international one in Autumn and to get at least a couple of 'born here' success stories of propositions going on to have significant impact. Get in touch if you want to be a part of these things. mwhkalis@gmail.com