MIT Enterprise Forum Pakistan in collaboration with Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at Information Technology University (ITU) is organizing Smart City: The Hackathon, a three-day event, scheduled from March 9 – 11, 2018.  

Smart City: The Hackathon is Pakistan’s first-ever, large-scale hackathon organized with the aim to start informed conversations around Smart City initiatives. Smart Cities involve the use of technology for increasing the operational efficiency, sustainability, economic outlook and quality of life for people living and working in a city.

While expressing her views, Areej Mehdi, Program Manager MIT Enterprise Forum Pakistan, said, “Smart City: The Hackathon is more than a competition, it is a small effort to leverage the inherent smartness of cities. Our collaboration with CIE at Information Technology University is a nod to the various exciting smart city initiatives being researched and developed at the university.”

Such initiatives have a huge potential in developing countries like Pakistan. To this end Smart City: The Hackathon provides an ideal opportunity for thinkers, innovators, entrepreneurs and developers to find implementable solutions for all city level problems. Moreover this would help identify young talent that can contribute towards intelligent cities.

Participating teams come from diverse backgrounds with a mix of students and professionals. Participants get to work on challenges they’ve not worked on before, in an effort to ideate, learn and hack. 

Smart City: The Hackathon is different from other hackathons in that it uses hands on design thinking approach to solving problems. On the first two days, teams will be workshopping their solutions with DesignThink trainer Rizwan Zaidi. The workshops include different activities on ideation, problem solving and design analysis. These activities help participants study the defined problem areas and come up with solutions within the sectors of health, education, transportation, power, and environment. They will then work on prototyping/wireframing prior to a session on storytelling and pitching, culminating in final pitches on Day 3.  

Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is a research facility housed at Information Technology University that promotes innovation and entrepreneurship through research, workshops and trainings. MIT Enterprise Forum Pakistan – an international of MIT Enterprise Forum – facilitates the local entrepreneurial ecosystem by collaborating with national and international stakeholders.