Calling all KP youth, techies, designers, entrepreneurs, and civic-minded geeks!

KPApps is an “online hackathon” that gives you the opportunity to create mobile and web applications, websites, or any other tech tool under three basic themes; and mobile-only applications under three additional categories. Winning teams will have access to amazing career and product development opportunities, while EVERY participant will have the chance to receive guidance from high-quality mentors, register for in-person workshops in Islamabad, Peshawar, and Abbottabad, and use this platform to find partners, teammates and collaborators.

KPApps is brought to you by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa IT Board, Code for Pakistan, Tech Valley Abbottabad, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, The World Bank and doctHers. Techjuice is the official media partner, and the KP-based IT companies Smile Network, RAR Multibiz Services, and WQ Softwares are Technical Partners.

KPApps aims to strengthen the broader tech “ecosystem” in the province by encouraging team building, promoting entrepreneurship, increasing governmental adoption of technology, and strengthening networks of youth interested in using technology as a force for positive social change.

Submissions can be under one the following categories: Web, Mobile, or SMS Apps for Civic Engagement, Governance, or Health -- and Mobile-only Apps for Agriculture, Finance, or Education.

Civic Engagement: The category welcomes tools that help the residents of KP engage around the solving of social problems, connect with each other around community building and urban issues, and provide opportunities to interact with and impact government functions and priorities. Submissions for this track should be geared towards the “citizen” as end-user, and submissions could incorporate either “citizen-to-citizen” or “citizen-to-government” models. This category will be managed by Code for Pakistan.

For example, potential submissions to this category could include ideas such as:

* Group-messaging applications that allow youth to self-organize neighborhood improvement projects
* Online “participatory budgeting” platforms that allow citizens to propose, visualize, and vote on local community-improvement projects
* Web, mobile, or SMS apps that address traffic issues by crowdsourcing and providing citizens real-time information about congestion and alerts about local emergencies

Broadly, any idea that improves a citizen's quality-of-life — whether related to public safety, the environment, infrastructure, transportation, access to information, and community building — should be submitted to the Civic Engagement category.

Governance: This category is looking for innovations that could help the KP Government in its ongoing efforts to use technology to increase transparency, accountability, and improve the efficiency of government processes. Submissions for this track could involve prototypes for “government-to-citizen” applications, or innovative solutions to internal technology challenges within government departments. This category will also be managed by Code for Pakistan. We are most interested in:

* Technology that assists the KP Government in providing swift and effective responses to natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods
* Platforms that enable municipal government bodies to interact and communicate with citizens
* Ideas for improving the delivery of public services by automating government processes

Generally, any idea that you believe has the potential to be adopted by the KP Government should be submitted to the Governance category.

Health: The public sector health care system in KP faces many problems such as structural fragmentation, resource scarcity, inefficiency and lack of functional specificity. This category seeks to create innovations in public health through digital tools that can expand access to care, information and improve efficiency in healthcare delivery to low-income communities. This category will be managed by Tech Valley Abbottabad. Potential submissions could include the following:

* Technology that digitizes records of children receiving polio vaccinations
* Digital platforms to facilitate doctor-patient communications in rural areas
* Online training systems for first-responders
* Building a mobile app or service which helps KP citizens understand and diagnose malnutrition

Mobile Apps for Agriculture, Finance, or Education: This is a broad challenge open to mobile applications that have viable commercial potential. Apps should fall under one of the additional thematic categories of the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority’s “Smart Pakistan” platform: Education, Banking/Finance, and Agriculture. Submissions could include:

* Mobile apps that allow farmers to communicate market information (prices, weather, shortages etc.) to various stakeholders
* Mobile apps that crowdsource information on the performance of students, teachers, and schools in KP
* Mobile apps that promote financial empowerment by facilitating money-transfer, foreign remittances, or e-commerce

If you have an idea and not sure which category it falls under, please ask us by starting a topic on the Discussion board!

Rs600,000 in prizes

• Register on Devpost.com
• Create a GitHub account.
• Use DevPost Discussion Forum to ask questions from organizers, look for teammates, and indicate your interest in mentoring.
• Use this submission form
• Complete all submission steps by March 14th

• Problem Solution Fit
  Is the problem well-defined? Is the solution a good fit for mitigating or resolving the issue?
• Novelty & Learning
  What is novel about the solution the team has proposed? Has it been done before? What will we learn from the solution that we didn’t already know before?
• Prototype
  How easy-to-use is the application? How elegant and engaging is the user experience and design? How functional and well-implemented is the prototype demo
• Sustainability
  How committed is the team to scaling/deploying the application beyond the hackathon? How will the app be adopted by users (govt/citizens/media) and usage sustained over time? Does it have a business model or sustainability solution?