App that reconnects families after disasters wins Davao hackathon

MANILA, Philippines - • For Davao-based developer Christopher John Cubos, one of the biggest tragedies he observed during the recent Super Typhoon Yolanda that ravaged most of Central Visayas was the difficulty of knowing the situation of families in typhoon-hit areas.

“Most of the people in Leyte and other areas felt alone and abandoned. When the typhoon struck, nobody was there to help them right away, and most of the people who survived were left to fend for themselves,” Cubos, owner of a Davao-based mobile and web development firm, said. 

This inspired Cubos and his teammates, composed of Kevin Omiple, Randolph Ramirez, Genesis Ortiz and Jonnel Ray Buisan, to create an app that reconnects families and informs their loved ones of their current location and situation using their phones, without the need of Internet connection.

Called iCalamity, Cubos’ creation bested 18 other mobile app projects that competed during the recently concluded AngelHack Davao hackathon organized by the Smart Developer Network (Smart DevNet).

The hackathon, or a “hacking marathon,” revolved around the theme of “Hack2Help” that challenged software developers and mobile programmers in the region to create apps and systems that can be useful during times of calamities in just the span of 24 hours.

“Our goal with iCalamity is to ensure that no one will ever have to face a calamity alone,” Cubos said.

By simply sending a text message to a centralized number, a father residing in Metro Manila, for example, will be able to know the approximate location of his daughter’s phone in Tacloban City.

Meanwhile, by using the accompanying mobile app, an OFW mother in Dubai will know the exact location of her husband in Guiuan, Eastern Samar, as plotted on an interactive map.

The entire iCalamity system uses a combination of GPS, geofencing and mapping technologies to correctly pinpoint the location of mobile phone users on the ground. By utilizing the YouPhoric SMS API introduced earlier by Smart Communications Inc. and content provider YouPhoric labs, friends and relatives can be notified via SMS of the current location of the user.

Cubos said the app is also useful for rescue and relief workers in the area so they can immediately identify which individuals and areas need urgent help.

“It’s amazing to see the ideas that the developers came up with for disaster relief. We’ve never done a hackathon with this theme before, and I think it hit home for everyone, and I am proud that the developers are really trying to build something that would not only change but also save

people’s lives,” said Kamrin Klauschie, global marketing and community manager at AngelHack, who is also one of the judges of the competition.

Drawing more than a hundred developers from around the region, the first AngelHack Davao also churned out the mobile app Enlist, which aims to make the system of volunteering during relief operations easier and more relevant.

Enlist is a social network of sorts for volunteers that aims to help individuals develop their skills around a number of areas necessary for volunteer work and creates an entire network of volunteers from around the country that can easily be tapped when needed, as in cases of natural calamities. This bagged second place.

For winning the grand prize during the country’s 2nd AngelHack event, the iCalamity team went home with P40,000 in cash, four Google Nexus devices, business incubation assistance from IdeaSpace, and automatic acceptance into the Spring 2014 HACKcelerator program of AngelHack in San Francisco, California.