UNESCO and the International Telecommunications Union ITU are organizing a

global hackathon on ICTs to support the decade of indigenous languages,

as part of the 2022 WSIS Forum.

The WSIS hackathon will launch on 19 April through 10 May.

Prize winners will be selected in three categories: Knowledge, Empowerment and Preservation.

UNESCO and ITU will organize two mentoring sessions, most likely on the 21^st and 25^th of April this month, with one session held in the morning (for Europe, Africa, Middle East and Asian time zone) and another in the afternoon (for the Americas).

The mentoring session would involve your hearing pitch sessions by the coding teams and then providing your constructive feedback in such areas as relevance & originality, feasibility, suggestions for additional tweaks/improvements. The mentors may also give opening or closing remarks highlighting the challenges and needs facing indigenous populations and languages from your perspective. There is a chance we may also forward you any further questions from the hackathon teams, which you may help respond to if you wish.

These mentoring sessions will be a key aspect of the global hackathon. We are hoping for as many as 60 teams to sign up for a five minute pitch session with one of at least six volunteer mentors, approximately ten mentoring sessions for you of 5 minutes each, over perhaps a two hour period.

REQUEST: I hope that you may agree to volunteer your time to help mentor the coding teams, and/or designate, if you are not available, representative(s) from your organization to be our WSIS hackathon mentors. N.B. Bilingual mentors in any language would be useful, e.g. Spanish/English bilingual speakers for the afternoon session, and French/Arabic/English for the morning session.

Upon hearing back from you on your availability, I will send you more details, options and ways to engage and contribute.

p.s. I also welcome you to please share the hackathon link (registration deadline is 19 April) on your mailing lists and newsletters to encourage more indigenous participants who may be interested.

https://icts-for-indigenous-languages.hackerearth.com/fr/

Thank you so much for your consideration. Best regards, Joe