Dorjee Khando
Assistive Technology Design Competition, AT-Hackathon, was organized by Ignition lab from June 1 to June 8, 2018, at Thapathali campus, Kathmandu. In it, the participants had to design a prototype assistive technology devices for differently abled people.
What is Assistive technology?
AT, Assistive Technology, is any device or system that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of people with disabilities. AT helps increase a person’s quality of life by empowering them to live more independent, productive, healthy, and dignified lives with greater access to education, the labor force, and social life.
The program was commenced on June 1ST 2018, Friday where the inauguration speech was delivered by Matt Rockwell, head of Disaster Hack (a San Francisco based tech INGO), followed by a number of guest speakers who motivated the participants and shared their experiences on disability and how assistive technology can help them and change their lives.
In the event, there were some disabled people who were grouped up with the participants where they had an interaction session for 10 minutes about the problems they faced. For which the participants had done their intense research and then came up with a solution which they had to submit as a proposal to the organizing team.
With the list of the proposal in hand, the organizers organized workshop and mentorship programs where the participants could enhance their performance. By the end of the program, Team Orpheus was declared the winner with a cash prize of NRs. 50,000, followed by B#S with a cash prize of NRs. 20,000. There were two winning teams with the title of the second runner-up: Cool V and My Sight were declared the third prize.
With the end of AT- Hackathon, it is informed that there will be an expo of AT-Hackathon on June 24th, 2018 at Ignition Lab. The main objective of the expo would be to have a detailed conversation with the team members about their projects if they want to continue it.
