Nepal Rises, Nepal Entrepreneurs’ Hub and Effect International organized a one-week event “effect expedition Nepal 2016-Hackathon” from 20th March to 26th March, where 14 staff members from Google came over to Nepal to discuss the challenges of reconstruction efforts after the Gorkha earthquake 2015.

The theme of the event was “Build Forward- travel for good” and was aimed to find solutions to the challenges of field-based NGOs and INGOs, working at local level, for rebuilding Nepal. The solutions were targeted at two organizations; Nepal Rises and All Hands Volunteers. So, the week was scheduled for the Googlers to practically experience the working areas of these organizations.

On the first day (Sunday), there was an introduction session where the Google team, along with Nepal Rises and Effect, introduced themselves and the organizations involved through presentation. The team went for a visit to different heritages like the Kathmandu Durbar Square and Swayambhunath Stupa. Similarly, briefing was done about their stay.

The second day was Holi, a traditional festival of Nepal. Friends from Google celebrated Holi with the locals in different parts of Kathmandu with the organizers from Effect International. They also went to visit Rakshya Nepal, an NGO working with children who have been trafficked and rescued. They celebrated Holi with the children and spent some time with them.

During the third day of the event, the Google and Nepal Rises team went to Kagatigaun of Nuwakot to see the collaborative efforts of building transitional shelters of All Hands Volunteers and Nepal Rises in that area. The team could witness and have hands-on experience on the challenges faced by these organizations like retention of volunteers, fund and staffs as well as lack of information retention when staffs and projects change. Similarly, other challenges identified were sustainability, effective communication, diverted attention, etc. Google, Nepal Rises and All Hands team worked together and constructed semi-permanent houses. All the members were divided into 3 groups and each had their own roles. One group constructed the foundation of a house, the other group made the walls and structure of a house whereas the third group built roof in one house.

The Nepal Rises, Effect International and Google team went to Shree Surya Primary School located at Okharpauwa 2, Nuwakot, on the fourth day as a visit to the work site of Nepal Rises. Nepal Rises is about to help in the reconstruction which will begin on September. The school was damaged by the earthquake and hasn’t been rebuilt.

There are about 75 students and are currently studying in a TLC. The school and the students had prepared a cultural program for the guests and the team got to view the destroyed school building and understand the present condition of the school. There was an interaction program between the visitors, the school staffs, the parents and community members. The children were also provided with stationery items and indoor games to improve the quality of educational environment of the school.

On the same day, a 56 hour Hackathon started at around 6 p.m. which was organized by Nepal Entrepreneurs’ Hub along with Nepal Rises, Effect International and All Hands Volunteers. Many people belonging to diferent sectors of expertise came together by registering for the event. There were 38 participants (14 from Google, 7 from All Hands, 3 from Nepal Rises, and others) who were supposed to pitch in ideas on solutions to challenges faced by the organizations during reconstruction. 18 people gave a one minute presentation and all the members voted for the top three among them. After counting the votes, top seven ideas were chosen to be worked on. Each idea got a group with 3 to 6 members. The team members then started working on the ideas.

The seven teams formed were A-HA!, NGOne, Undiscovered Nepal, Don’t Repeat Sheets, Resource Mapping – ReMap, Nepal Rises Donation Platform and Information Collaboration TBD. The teams made web based apps and websites to decrease the challenges of Nepal Rises and All Hands during the next two days.

The concept of each teams were as follows:

• A-HA!: To make an information sharing platform for All Hands Volunteers in the form of a mobile application in which staffs and volunteers can post information that they think might be important to others through photos and videos.
• NGOne: To connect volunteers all around the world with NGOs and INGOs by providing information like type of work they are doing, skills of volunteers in their profile and organizations’ need for volunteer through mobile app.
• Undiscovered Nepal: To make an automatically generated website of travel destinations in Nepal through information, photos and videos posted on Facebook.
• Don’t Repeat Sheets: To create a mobile application that works offline and can be synced when there is internet connection in which staffs and volunteers will share their lessons learnt during their daily work.
• Resource Mapping (ReMap): Resource Mapping group proposed to make an app that located various resources in any area like number of schools, roads, offices, etc. as well as every other kind of information to be added by different NGOs already working in an area which might be useful for other NGOs wanting to work there as well.
• Nepal Rises Donation Platform: To create an application through which interested profit-making companies can donate non monetary items to local non-profit organizations and organizations can make a database of their need of resources.
• Information Collaboration TBD: To create a web database for the internal staffs on summaries of previous reports from all disaster sites, lessons learnt, best practices, etc. with filters like types of disaster, country, and so on.

The teams prepared for a presentation on the third day of Hackathon showing the work they did during the three days. Then, three winning teams were selected through voting and marking by all the participants. NGOne was the winner, A-HA being the second and Undiscovered Nepal was the third idea selected as the best three by the members.

The event was concluded with announcing the winners and providing souvenirs to the Google team. The organizers showed their pleasure of having all the enthusiastic participants and the participants showed their gratitude of letting them explore, experience, learn and help Nepal rebuild in some way.