First-of-a-kind event will rally global tech community around a common goal: creating technical solutions that help refugees find lost family
Three weekend challenges in Cairo, Egypt; San Francisco, USA; and Nairobi, Kenya
Winners to be announced on World Refugee Day, 20 June
In order to raise awareness of the plight of refugees, and find new ways to reconnect refugee families in some of the most remote areas in the world, Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and Refugees United will run a series of developer competitions leading up to World Refugee Day, on 20 June 2013.
The number of forcibly displaced people around the world is measured now at 43 million. That is why it is urgent to reconnect families who have been separated due to conflict, war, and disaster. So far over 200,000 refugees have registered on the service, and the aim is to reach 1 million by the end of 2015.
The Global Hack for Good will galvanize the talent and skill of the developer community toward a solution for separated families. The unique series of hackathons - a weekend-long marathon of developing applications on mobile networks - will be held on three continents, on three separate weekends, but all are working toward the same goal of making re-connection easier.
For example, refugees may be reluctant to share data, or they face challenges such as illiteracy and lack of internet connectivity. Developers might find ways to make the platform more accessible from low-cost mobile phones, change interfaces or modify the built-in messaging application that allows refugees to exchanges messages without additional costs.
The first hackathon will be in Cairo, Egypt, on 31 May-1 June. Then, a new batch of developers will gather in San Francisco, USA, on 7-8 June, and the third part of the Global Hack for Good will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, on 15-16 June.
Christopher Mikkelsen, co-founder of Refugees United, says: Everyone has the right to know where their family is. To separated refugee families, this for many years seemed impossible. Today, were at a tipping point where technology can help them reconnect. Now its up to us to act and help.
Elaine Weidman-Grunewald, Vice President of Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility, Ericsson, said: We have a long-term commitment to the refugee cause, and have been working with Refugees United since 2010 to create a mobile platform for refugees to reconnect with family and loved ones. We now want to harness some of the new innovation and technology of the developer community with this Global Hack for Good, in order to scale and amplify the great work that is already underway.
Increasingly we see developers wanting to apply their skills for a good cause - this is a true example of Technology for Good, and we hope to see the worlds most talented developers create new ideas to serve more separated families, she said.
The jury, including experts from both Ericsson and Refugees United, will select two finalists at each location. On World Refugee Day, June 20, 2013, a winner from each location will be announced. The three winners receive a trip to Kenya and will be invited to test their prototypes in the Kakuma refugee camp in late 2013.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Invitations and location information: Global Hack for Good
Hack for Good - Cairo
Hack for Good - San Francisco
Hack for Good - Nairobi
www.refunite.org
Refugees United - Bahatis story (video)
Download high-resolution photos and broadcast-quality video at www.ericsson.com/press
Ericsson is a world-leading provider of communications technology and services. We are enabling the Networked Society with efficient real-time solutions that allow us all to study, work and live our lives more freely, in sustainable societies around the world.
Our offering comprises services, software and infrastructure within Information and Communications Technology for telecom operators and other industries. Today 40 percent of the worlds mobile traffic goes through Ericsson networks and we support customers networks servicing more than 2.5 billion subscriptions.
We are more than 110,000 people working with customers in more than 180 countries. Founded in 1876, Ericsson is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2012 the companys net sales were SEK 227.8 billion (USD 33.8 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX, Stockholm and NASDAQ, New York stock exchanges.
www.ericsson.com
www.ericsson.com/sustainability
www.twitter.com/ericssonpress
www.twitter.com/ericssonsustain
www.facebook.com/ericsson
www.facebook.com/technologyforgood
www.youtube.com/ericssonpress
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT
Ericsson Corporate Communications
Phone: +46 10 719 69 92
E-mail: media.relations@ericsson.com
Ericsson Investor Relations
Phone: +46 10 719 00 00
E-mail: investor.relations@ericsson.com
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
First-of-a-kind event will rally global tech community around a common goal: creating technical solutions that help refugees find lost family
