18 Jan 2021

SmartBots, a government initiative under the Digital Implementation Strategy, has announced a virtual smart hackathon challenge for the development of a mobile application for the public sector.

Virtually briefing more than 250 challenge applicants yesterday, Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology, Dr Douglas Letsholathebe said the mobile gov-app was one of government’s efforts aimed at ensuring citizen participation in the 4th Industrial Revolution.

He said the country stood to gain a strong position within Africa and the rest of the world as a “Smart Society” with the broader use of technology to grow, work and transact.

Dr Letsholathebe said the gov-app aimed to enhance the country’s global competitiveness by means of adopting digital technologies and innovation in key economic sectors such as tourism, beef and mining, as well as in the fields of energy and Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

‘This transformation, in turn, will result in improved quality of life for individuals, increased business opportunities for the private sector and a governance model that uses technology to engage and better serve citizens' needs,” he explained.

Dr Letsholathebe also said at the core of the country’s public sector transformation would be the evolvement of Botswana Innovation Hub (BIH) into a digital and innovation hub (DIH).

The new entity, he explained, would be led by a multidisciplinary team that would support public agencies to design citizen-centric services and public policies.

Elaborating on the challenge, BIH director of ICT Mr Tshepo Tsheko said it was an online competition for the development of a gov-app that would deliver government services to the public open only to citizen software developers aged between 18 to 35.

 He said it had already attracted applications from 331 citizens in the diaspora.

“The winner of the hackathon stands a chance to pocket P100 000 for providing a working solution for the mobile app at the end of the challenge,” he stated.

The challenge, which began yesterday, ends Thursday.   

Mr Tsheko said some services that would be available in the initial phase of the mobile app included application of various agricultural support and initiatives, internship programme and Omang. Ends