Social entrepreneurship accelerator Dream Tank unveiled the results of its month-long #ReversePandemic hackathon during its global virtual summit on Friday. The Boulder-based nonprofit’s youth-led hackathon was focused on solving problems around four themes: economic reconstruction, community resilience, healthcare aid and assistance and education.
“I wanted to empower youth to reverse these pandemics, these sudden outbreaks happening in our world, starting with corona[virus],” Keshav DT said during the virtual summit. Keshav is a 15-year-old from the San Francisco area who helped organize the hackathon.
COVIDCare, a site that uses AI and natural language processing to help doctors test the probability of a patient being infected with COVID-19, won the hackathon’s first-place prize on Friday. Mask Detect, software built by a brother-sister team that texts store managers when someone enters a facility without a mask, placed second. Third place went to SpendSmart, an app helps people social distance by locating which stores nearby have the items they need, and are selling them for the cheapest price.
The youth entrepreneurs behind the winning pitches will next bring their ideas to adult mentors in the VC and tech communities to explore how they can turn their ideas into a reality.
“Congratulations to the Dream Makers who submitted ideas and to the winning ideas,” Dream Tank founder Heidi Cuppari wrote in a message to Built In.
Among the 14 other hackathon finalists were ideas ranging from a platform that helps individuals operate de-centralized food pantries out of their homes to an app that allows people to integrate physical items into remote play with friends.
Friday’s virtual summit also included discussions on how children, teens and youth leaders can fight racism in their communities. These conversations were inspired by the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the hands of a white police officer and, according to organizers, mark the beginning of the discussions Dream Tank will be holding on the topic.
Founded in 2016, Dream Tank hopes to bring together one billion youth across the globe to discuss how social entrepreneurship can strengthen communities. It offers accelerators, hackathons and digital technology workshops.
