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NEWS IN BRIEF

Minister Ayanda Dlodlo

Hacks Public Service Month

The University of Johannesburg was turned into a festival digitise the public health system in order to leverage big data
of ideas when the Minister for the Public Service and and deep learning to deliver enhanced services to citizens.
Administration Ms Ayanda Dlodlo convened over 400 of the All the solutions that were developed over the weekend will
brightest and most innovative minds in South Africa for a be presented to the relevant government departments to
three-days National Public Service Hackathon. The event was encourage them to implement the solutions they deem most
a business-unusual closing ceremony to mark the end of the viable.
annual Public Service Month and it was a hive a productive
activity, demonstrating that government was indeed at work. Public Sector innovation is the new frontier in the march
to development and the Ministry for the Public Service and
Minister Dlodlo officially opened the Hackathon by learning Administration is committed to becoming a vehicle for
-Sharp computer
innovation in the Public Service.
how to code the welcoming message using C-Sharp computer innovation in the Public Service.
the Hackers for
programming language and she also joined the Hackers for
Saturday. Also
the pitches that took place at midnight on Saturday. Also
ter for the Public
present at the Hackathon were Deputy Minister for the Public
Service and Administration Dr Chana Pilane-Majake, Deputy
-Majake, Deputy
Minister of Communications Ms Pinky Kekana, as well as
na, as well as
ufi.
Gauteng MEC for Education Mr Panyaza Lesufi.

The 400 plus participants hailed from
all over the country from different back-
grounds. Upon arrival at the Hackathon,
they were briefed on the biggest
challenges facing service delivery in the
country. The Hackers were given 40 hours s
to develop innovative solutions to challenges s
nd
in the Education, Health, Environment, and
Accountability sectors, amongst others.
The overall winners were Team Guardian who
who
created a solution called Keaphila, a
ed on
decentralised data storage system based on
ance
Blockchain principles, which will enhance
the implementation of the NHI Scheme.
eme.
The solution allows medical professional
onal
file
across the board to access a patient’s file
remotely.

The runner-ups were University of
of
ho
Johannesburg’s TechnoLab team who
on
developed BETA which focuses on
empowering young people in South h
Africa to be able to attain extremely y
critical and useful skills. They created d
an app that uses artificial intelligence
to help learners solve Mathematics
problems intuitively and easily.

Data Wizzards completed the top three
and they came up with a solution to

4 SERVICE DELIVERY REVIEW | Volume 12 No. 1 of 2018| Volume 12 No. 1 of 2018