What happens when two giants joins hand? Well, something new and big will happen. Similarly the case here: the social giant Facebook partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to host “HackEd,” and education-centered hackathon. The goal to host such an event is so that the Gates Foundation’s new $2.5 million investment fund dubbed as the College Knowledge Challenge to kick-off.
The hackathon hosts a total of around 150 developers, technologist, education experts and non-profits who worked together and built “something” that would be beneficial in an app for college goers. The fund lets developers build apps for the students; means helping young folks get into school and stay there.
The successful apps will address one or more of the top three roadblocks by:
- Helping students build, test, and implement personal academic pathways that grow out of college-career aspirations and are supported by informed decision making.
- Helping students build social capital and a college-going peer group.
- Rectifying information asymmetries in college admissions, financial aid, and college selection processes that disadvantage low-income and first generation students