On 12 and 13 November 2016, the PayPal office in Sholinganallur was the hub of an interesting social experiment. 15 NGOs had been selected to be given technology assistance from some of the young socially motivated software developers and coders of Chennai.  This was the second installment of the “Oppurtunity Hackathon”. Dr. Hemal, Mr. Sivakumar and Mr. Suresh Kumar represented MOHAN Foundation.

The day 1 started with a keynote  Address by Suman Srivatsava on marketing. This was followed by all NGOs stating their problems and hinting at solutions that they needed.  Teams were formed by the hackers choosing the cause they wanted to assist. Seven young hackers spent 48 hours helping MOHAN Foundation to solve a problem of access to information by developing a mobile application to help answer calls.  Prototype 1 was developed and after testing the final version shall be available to the public. Seniors from Paypal motivated the youngsters and guided them to complete the task.

At the end of two days all the teams vied with each other to get a prize for their work. The judges were Sriram Iyer of Nalanda Way, Sundhari Somasekar of Zeus Career, Sudarshan of Cognisant Outreach and Ramesh Parthasarty of Fresh Desk.  The team Childline was awarded for the best technology intervention.

MOHAN Foundation is indebted to the team of Bharath, Rohini, Yamini, Vignesh, Kannan, Satwik and Devayan Sarkar for their time and effort. MOHAN Foundation also thanks the team of Vikram Krishnan, Parimala and others for this opportunity, the hospitality and the positive atmosphere at the venue.