Hack For Good 2021 - The Social Census
The Social Census - 1st Runners-Up
Hack For Good 2021 was a hackathon organized by Developer Student Club (DSC) NUS, that seeks to inspire students to learn and use technology for social causes.
I think what drew me specifically to Hack For Good was the fact that it posed real-world problem statements from NPOs in Singapore, and specifically targeted at social good. Many of us, including myself, seek to effect positive change in the world, and this seemed like a good opportunity to marry technical knowledge and social impact.
Our team chose the problem statement from NUS OSA:
How can we tap on technology to get youths to learn, understand and appreciate diversity and participate in creating a more inclusive space?
Our solution, The Social Census, is a simple, fun-to-use question-and-answer platform that provokes thought and discussion about social issues involving diversity in Singapore, by illuminating the differences in our views and experiences.
Reflections
My role in this project was to analyze the situation and come up with a simple and elegant solution (problem analysis and ideation), then craft our message to our audience such that they see our beliefs (pitch deck and presentation scripting).
For me, I think the biggest difficulty was coming up with a solution that we really believed in. I think we got the approach wrong in our first few attempts, looking at what was cool, what we wanted to code, instead of analysing the problem first. Basically, we did things backwards. Looking back, I knew something was wrong when I found myself unconvinced whilst explaining our solution to my friends haha. So with not much time left, we had to pull the brakes, take a good look at the problem statement afresh, and rethink our entire solution. Thank God for hardworking teammates that made The Social Census work out in the end :").
Thus, I especially resonated with the comments made by one of the judges:
Solve for the user first, and a deep answer will most likely emerge as creative to everyone else. If you solve for creativity first, you end up force-fitting the answer onto the problem. - Jeremy Au
Grand Finals Pitch Deck
View our slide deck here, or watch our presentation below: