DICT vows fixes after first eGovHackathon

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has acknowledged problems in the first eGov Hackathon and pledged to improve its registration, judging, procurement, and evaluation processes as it prepares to continue working with participating developers.

DICT Undersecretary for e-Government David Almirol Jr. said the inaugural event, held from July 21 to July 22, was not perfect but showed the government’s intention to seriously engage the information technology community in developing services that could bring government closer to the public.

“MADAMING NEED AYUSIN AT I-IMPROVE sa susunod na eGovHackathon. At madami ding aayusin mismo sa government systems and processes, primary reason why we initiated the eGovHackathon,” Almirol said. “I’ve seen hackathons in the past pero hanggang dun lang, parang competition lang at usapan ng kung sino mananalo. But what we need is to really implement these solutions to the government, yung hindi lang kwento, hindi lang awarding at hindi lang hype at picture taking.”

More than 1,500 people registered in less than a week, representing over 250 teams. The organizers eventually received 137 entries, exceeding their initial expectations and forcing them to decline some applicants.

Almirol thanked the participants who gave up their time to join the overnight competition. He said the event opened the first nine e-government application programming interfaces (APIs), to developers, with more expected to be made available in future editions.

However, he admitted that the short development and evaluation periods made it difficult to properly assess the technologies submitted by the teams.

The organizers initially announced 10 leading teams but withheld the final winners. Almirol said the top 30 entries would be announced and invited to individual technical meetings beginning next week.

He said he would personally review the top 30 projects before the organizers select the five winners.

The decision was made after Almirol raised concerns that the initial evaluation focused largely on submitted presentation materials rather than the technical features and actual technologies developed by the participants.

He said independent judges were invited to prevent bias or favoritism, but the limited evaluation period made it difficult for them to conduct an in-depth review of all 137 entries.

Almirol said the government did not want the hackathon to become merely a competition ending with presentations, awards, publicity, and photographs.

Instead, he said promising projects should be evaluated for possible adoption and implementation in government systems.

Registration, procurement problems acknowledged

Almirol also apologized for problems encountered during registration and the limited time given to the judges.

He said the registration process could not be fully automated because some government documentation requirements still required participants’ names and physical signatures for accounting and auditing purposes.

The requirement, he said, demonstrated why existing government procedures must also be reviewed as agencies continue their digital transformation.

Almirol also cited difficulties involving government procurement. He said he wanted the venue, materials, and other event requirements prepared earlier, but procurement was completed only shortly before the hackathon.

The process reportedly required several changes to documents to comply with government procurement rules.

He said simpler procurement requirements should be considered for relatively small activities and proposed including the issue as one of the challenges in a future eGovHackathon.

For the next edition, Almirol is considering an open hackathon that would give participants at least one week to develop their projects, followed by another week for evaluation before the winners are announced.

He also proposed involving members of the IT community in judging future entries.

DICT is now enhancing the eGovHackathon portal to improve its registration, participant profiling, and evaluation modules. The agency also plans to create a mechanism allowing more IT practitioners to participate in the process.

DICT seeks ₱100-million allocation

Almirol said the eGovHackathon had no dedicated line item in the government budget and was financed using available savings.

The event had a budget of more than ₱3 million covering the venue, food, organizers, equipment, materials, personnel, lights, sound systems, and other requirements.

Sponsors contributed more than ₱100,000, while other forms of support included shirts and gift certificates.

Almirol said there was initially no budget for cash prizes because allocating one would require another procurement and justification process.

He said he decided to personally provide ₱1 million for the prizes. Another ₱1 million was later committed by First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos during the event.

Almirol said President Marcos and the First Lady supported recommendations to strengthen the local technology startup sector and deepen the government’s engagement with the IT community.

He added that the e-government team had been instructed to allocate available savings for the next hackathon.

DICT has also requested a ₱100-million allocation for 2027 to support Filipino developers, systems integrators, and small local technology startups.

Despite the problems encountered during the first event, Almirol encouraged IT practitioners to continue participating in government digital-transformation initiatives.

He acknowledged that improving government systems and processes would be difficult but said the government and technology community should continue working together to build better services for future generations.

“So, my fellow IT practitioners, do not be disheartened nor give up. Kahit nasa gobyerno man ako/tayo o wala – let’s do something, I know it will never be easy, napakahirap nitong gagawin natin na ayusin ang government systems, but atleast let’s try our best – para sa mga anak natin at susunod na henerasyon,” Almirol said.