The second edition of the Coding4Integrity youth anti-corruption hackathon series took place in September 2022 in São Paulo, Brazil. The hackathon was organized in the context of the Global Action for Business Integrity and in synergy with the Global Integrity Education Project, both funded by the Siemens Integrity Initiative, and supported by the GRACE initiative. The hackathon represented an interesting example of programmatic synergy among varied thematic focuses under UNODC’s Corruption and Economic Crime Branch.
Hackathon participants were asked to develop an ICT-based idea or solution that addresses one of the following challenges: gender-sensitive reporting – an essential tool to detect and prevent Corruption; transparency and accessibility at the service of small businesses – guiding small companies through the bidding process; know your counterparts – enhancing access to information about business integrity.
The hackathon brought together 43 young participants, 35 software developers from Brazil and eight law university students from Mexico.
The hackathon was designed for software developers who are Brazilian nationals aged 18 and above, with basic coding skills, knowledge of varied coding languages and some experience with development technologies, and ultimately passionate about using their tech skills to design innovative solutions to promote integrity and tackle corruption in their country. The Mexican university students, currently enrolled in relevant university courses, complemented the teams of coders to provide expertise into areas of anti-corruption, business integrity and compliance.
From the initial 10 teams admitted to the programme, nine participated to the in-person competition and successfully pitched their final tech-based project to the judge panel composed of representatives from the City of São Paulo Comptroller Office, SEBRAE São Paulo and the tech entrepreneurship world.
The winning team was formed by four undergraduate students in computer engineering from UNICAMP - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil, and a law student from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Léon, Mexico.
The winning solution utilizes artificial intelligence to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in establishing a gender-sensitive whistleblowing system to detect and prevent gender-based corruption from harming employees and corporate communication channels.
The winning team will have the opportunity to: