Maya Gilliss-Chapman, a founder of Cambodia in Tech, wants to build a bridge between Silicon Valley and Phnom Penh. So, she comes up with an idea of Hackathon event. Hackathon happened on the 26th and 27th November, it is not really an event but a competition. Basically, there are many groups that trying to develop their idea addressing a problem in the society. They have to have their solution mockup and a business plan. There are two groups that come from my school, one is a group that doing about the health problem and my group, which is about finding a market for farmers (ImEx). We used all of those two days to prepare and develop our idea. At the end, we have to pitch our idea/solution to the judges. The team that caught my attention the most is the Flexible Keyboard. Their idea is really cool, in term of helping Cambodian to type Khmer faster and in a correct word. Finally, after the pitch, there were three teams that won the award and that does not include my team. We didn’t surprise because the teams that we compete with are the students from University. We were proud of all of the effort and determination that we all had put into this competition. We had lots of good advice from judges that we can somehow develop on our application more. We had met lots of people that interest in our idea and want to help us develop it.
Thanks so much, Maya, for this Hackathon! Hope to join it again….