Tech For Justice: Migration Lab Lesbos had 4 teams and a total of 16 student developers from diverse backgrounds and skills working on the Tech For Justice problem of “Empowering Refugees in Complex Humanitarian Crises” at the IDHack.

CentRefuge won 2nd place with a $500 award out of nearly 100 students.

Complete problem statement: “Although there are many apps and tech solutions for the current refugee crises available – most of the platforms do not give refugees the ability to communicate their basic needs and also rate the aid organizations available on efficiency. We have access to a database of all of the apps and tech projects currently on the ground in Lesbos, Greece. First, we need to examine their methodology and see which tech solutions might apply. Next, we want to create a simple tool for refugees to request food, water, shelter and also rate local aid organizations, volunteers, and local businesses. We will pilot this system with Migration Lab in Lesbos.”

Team descriptions:

  1. RefugeeAidLesbos

Team members: Ricky Chen, Owen Martin, Jon Atkins, and Ariel Barbieri-Aghib (Tufts)

For more info visit Github

2. BASICS

Teams members: Caroline Caltagirone (Visiting scholar at Harvard University) and Octave Muhirwa (Wentworth Institute of Technology)

For more info visit Github and Presentation

3. Coordinaid

Team members: Adrianna Tan (Wellesley), Sam Chin (Wellesley), Lisa Truong (Wellesley), Shane Skikne, and Annie Ku

For more info visit Github and presentation

4. CentRefuge

Team members: Whitney Fahnbulleh (Wellesley), Ella Chao (Wellesley), Mayrui Sridhar (MIT), Darrien Glasser (UMass Lowell), Amin Manna (MIT)

For more info visit Github and website

Furthermore,

  • You can view the complete list of IDHack2016 project pitches here.
  • To contact the teams please email Danielle Kaidanow – Project Facilitator
  • Although Lesbos was the first region addressed, the solutions are customizable and scalable
  • Demos will take place from 11AM – 12PM on Saturday, February 20th at Tufts

Learn more about the Tech For Justice initiative by visiting their website.

Photo: Somali Refugees in Dolo Ado, Ethiopia via UNICEF Ethiopia [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

 

 

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