The winning team with Marianne Quebral, OML Center executive director, Benjamin R. Lopez, First Philippine Holdings Corporation VP, Agnes de Jesus, FPH chief sustainability officer and Dr. Rodel Lasco, OML Center scientific directorIn the science-dominated field of climate change, there is a gap between the technical solutions to climate-related risks and the people who most need to use them.

In an effort to bridge the divide, the Oscar M. Lopez Center launched Hack the Climate: Business Unusual at PLDT Innolab in September. The country’s first eco-centric “hackathon”—themed “Responsible business adaptation and its benefits to community resilience”— hosted over a hundred students and professionals who brought fresh eyes to the challenge of coming up with creative responses to climate risks.

Over the course of three days, participants were guided by experienced IT mentors and scientists from the OML Center. On the first day of the event, speakers from the public and private sector, academe and civil society discussed how adaptive solutions can play key roles in their respective sectors.

Monica’s Minions, the recipient of the grand prize of P100,000, developed an interactive disaster adaptation app called KASALI.

The app leverages the popularity of noontime TV, with hosts incentivizing users to download and use the app; this allows the app to collect and report demographic information to authorities for disaster risk evaluation. KASALI relays data from official sources to users, and an algorithm developed at the “hackathon” turns this into geo-targeted, easily understandable information.

The KASALI team is made up of Mac Valmores, Ely Apao, Nelson Dolot, Lorenzo Miguel Villalon and Monica Labbao.

Team 220 came in second place with an app called Med Prep, which strives to enable a proactive health sector. It was developed by Dexter Enrick Edep and Dale Wilson Garcia, who took home P50,000.

The winners were chosen by a panel of judges who reviewed the products based on technical soundness, originality, viability and impact/relevance. (Stroy/Photo by: Arianna Lim)