Lolita Ganapin, executive director of Bidlisiw Foundation Inc., speaks before the participants of the PitchFest at The Company in IT Park Cebu on Saturday, June 29, 2019. | Raul Constantine Tabanao
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Bidlisiw Foundation Inc., in cooperation with Sympn, CodeChum, Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT-7) in Central Visayas, Inspire Team, New Logic, and ACX Outsourcing Hub, will conduct its first ever Hackathon in Cebu combating online sexual exploitation of children (OSEC) through innovative IT solutions.
Lolita Ganapin, Bidlisiw Foundation Inc. executive director, said that the Hackathon would be held on July 13 to July 14 this year.
“We came up with the idea nag mag-pitch fest [and hackathon] because we wanted the IT industries to do something in response to the issue of online sexual exploitation of children. Pitchfest is because we will be asking them to pitch their innovative ideas, and hackathon is because we want to develop that idea nga ilang gi pitch, develop it into prototype IT solutions,” Ganapin said.
(We came up with the idea to have pitchfest and hackathon because we wanted the IT industries to do something in response to the issue of online sexual exploitation of children. Pitchfest is because we will be asking them [the participants] to pitch their innovative ideas, and hackathon is because we want them to develop that idea into prototype IT solutions)
Ganapin added that around a hundred participants from different IT companies, agencies, as well as students from Informatics College Cebu, STI College, and University of Cebu (UC) will be joining the Hackathon.
According to Ganapin, these participants will be divided into 15 groups composed of three to five members each.
The participants will undergo a Pitchfest, which aims to share of the current situation of online sexual exploitation of children as well as creating their own innovative IT solutions for prevention, detection, or reporting of sexual exploitation with the guidance of content and tech mentors.
After pitching their ideas, the mentors will review their ideas. Then, they will have a shortlist of participants who can proceed to the Hackathon to start developing their own prototypes.
Ganapin said that during the Hackathon, they would invite government agencies and companies who might be interested to the prototypes created by the participants and make it into a full project to address the online sexual exploitation of children (OSEC) in the community.
Bidlisiw Foundation Inc. is a non-profit organization operating in the cities of Mandaue, Cebu, Northern Iloilo and Bohol, which aims to improve the quality of family and community life among Filipino children and families. The group also campaigns to fight online sexual exploitation of children./dbs