As Turkish Informatics Foundation and our platform the Beginning Node, we had taken critical roles in organizing Turkey’s first online hackathon on COVID-19. Together with more than 50 partners (including NGOs, universities, corporations, startups, public institutions, andmore), we founded Coronathon Turkey platform and helped bright minds find innovative solutions to the pandemic. We received more than 1,400 individual applications. In the two-day contest, around 1,000 online mentoring sessions took place. Close to 150 concrete ideas were submitted.
Twelve projects were awarded prizes in the event. One of those teams, a telemedicine company called Medibook offered delivering healthcare services online. Another team named Biotel, suggested the use of a machine in the Molecular Biology and Genetics labs to increase the number of daily tests and made a significant contribution to the process by revealing this idle potential.
Coronathon Turkey initiative became a multi-stakeholder platform with no formal identity, far from hierarchical structure, working with a distributed responsibility model. As a problem solving community, this platform aims to create value by focusing on whatever is the problem of the day.