Israeli Techies To Brainstorm Ideas For Tackling Australia Bush Fire Challenges

By Shoshanna Solomon, The Times of Israel January 27, 2020 2 minutes

An image of the smoke produced from the bushfires in Australia from the International Space Station taken at an altitude of 424 km on January 4, 2020. By NASA ISS - https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?mission=ISS061&roll=E&frame=120235, Public Domain, Link

This article was first published by The Times of Israel and is re-posted with permission.

Israeli tech entrepreneurs, programmers, water and environmental experts and zoologists are being called to take part in a special hackathon that will take place for 15 hours later this week in Tel Aviv to devise ways to help Australia tackle the consequences of the environmental calamity it is witnessing.

Called #StandWithAUS, the all-night hackathon, which will start at 6 p.m. on Jan. 30 and end at 9 a.m. the next day, will seek to tackle the challenges of the devastating Australian bush fires, which has seen the destruction of thousands of homes, death of citizens and killed and displaced almost half a billion animals. Hackathons are sprint-like events where programmers and other professionals team up to create solutions to challenges in a limited amount of time.

A bushfire moves towards the Southern Highlands township of Yanderra as police evacuate residents from Yanderra Road, December 21, 2019. By Helitak430 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0 — A bushfire moves towards the Southern Highlands township of Yanderra as police evacuate residents from Yanderra Road, December 21, 2019. By Helitak430 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

The initiative is spearheaded by Appleseeds Academy, a non-profit that seeks to close the digital divide in Israel and create technological equality, Kinneret Innovation Center, a tech hub that is part of the Kinneret Academic College, and Impact Innovation Israel, a tech consultancy. Its backers include VC fund Grove Ventures, Amazon Web Services, Cisco, SAP, My Heritage and the Keren Hayesod marketing firm Natural Intelligence, according to the registration form for the event.

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