What's the one thing you'd want to change about Beirut?

On September 16-18, Wamda and the American University of Beirut (AUB) are organizing “Reboot Beirut: shaping the future of communities” a hackathon where engineering and computer science students from AUB will work alongside industry experts to find creative tech solutions to the daily challenges we face as a community.

What exactly is a hackathon? A hackathon is a weekend-long event where developers, engineers, and designers work tirelessly to develop or build a unique tech-driven solution from scratch. These innovations usually take the form of websites, mobile apps, hardware and more.

Here are the issues we'll be tackling:

Future of Mobility: Traditional modes of transportation and transit are becoming obsolete, and will soon need a complete overhaul to keep up with cities of the future where sensors, AI, and smart cars roam the roads. Crowdmapping, P2P models, neural networks and a few moonshot technologies (like Hyperloop) are the building blocks of a world where only robots drive, so imagine what comes next. It’s time to think of a new way to go from point A to point B.

Wi-Fi Revolution: Think of Beirut as a piece of IoT technology: how would you connect all its elements to the web? Think of a city where data is whizzing everywhere, connecting trees to drones, or even cars to street lights. What can we do with such data-rich urban environments? How can we make our infrastructure future-proof? What is your solution to getting your community connected?

Sensorama: Sensors do their thing, they sense. Whether it’s your movement, interests (algorithmically), and even your vital signs, sensors connect webizens to each other and the environment surrounding them. How far can we truly go with these sensors? Here's your chance to get creative and further explore their use.

Connectome: Hyper-connectivity is the future. Soon, everyone will be connected to their homes, cities, and even their countries. Energy, data and utility will be freely interchangeable and quantifiable. In this track you will be working on designing a system or an innovation to connect multiple entities around you.

City 2.0: It’s time to change the rules of the game. If Beirut were to be gamified, how would you design it so that everybody is a winner? Will you create a rich data-powered reward system? Gamify Beirut to take it to the next level.

If this doesn’t tickle your geek bone then we don’t know what will!

Registration is open to all AUB students and will occur on a first come first serve basis, followed by an interview.

If you've already got an idea you're interested in working on during the hackathon, but doesn't squarely fall under any of the above, you're still welcome to apply and further develop it, and your chances of being selected will not be affected.

Make sure to spread the word and show some love by using the hashtag #RebootBeirut.