Over two weeks, a couple of tech-focused minds at FedEx Institute of Technology reached out to similarly endowed brains across the city to create Fighting It Together, a five-day virtual hackathon starting Monday that gives techies a stab at solving the issues the city faces as the coronavirus surge looms.

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Using free video conferencing provided by the FedEx Institute and centralized chat channels, the plan is to train community brainpower on problems like medical supply shortages, gaps in virtual learning – even how business might proceed in the COVID era – all within the confines of social distancing.

“We host 10-12 hackathons a year at the Institute,” said Raminder Lotay, manager of projects and facilitation. “We realize there is an opportunity here.”

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Although many in the tech community are working from home now, he said, “If they are willing to give up just a little time, they can really make a potential impact in the community.

“We are looking to be that conduit,” he said.

Claudio Donndelinger and his son Korben sit in front of their home, where Donnedelinger has been working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Donndelinger, an expert in emerging technology at the FedEx Institute, will be assisting with Fighting It Together, a five-day virtual hackathon that starts Monday. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)

Lotay and Claudio Donndelinger, an expert in emerging technology at the FedEx Institute, suspect the session could pack a wallop. As evidence of the size of community, they point to the 3,800 registered with Meetup.com’s Memphis Technology Users Group.

The hackathon begins at 11 a.m. Monday. At 11:15, participants will hear the challenges the city faces. At 11:45, they will be assigned to teams. And then, according to the invitation Donndelinger emailed Thursday, the participants will “pick a problem, exchange contact information, and start hacking!”

The hackathon ends at 2 p.m. next Friday when the teams will show their solutions. Prizes will be awarded to the top ideas.

The week will also include help with team development, workshops on developing mobile apps and tech “how-to” breakout groups.

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Audrey Willis, manager of innovation and performance analysis for Shelby County Government, is one of two city and county employees advising the organizers and judging the solutions.

She’s also a member of the Memphis/Shelby County COVID-19 Task Force working to lead the region through the pandemic.

“One of the great things about the tech community is everybody knows everybody; everybody knows where you work. Everybody knows that when something needs to get done, you’ve got people you can reach out to to get the help you need. This COVID-19 hackathon is a great place for people to leverage the network where you’ve got people who know technology and know how to build solutions.” – Rich Thompson, Memphis. Makers president

“We have been working on this every day for over 30 days; heads-down-to-the-pavement,” she said. “We’re hoping to get some fresh eyes on the problems we need to solve.

“This is not like World War II when citizens were called to make blankets and save tin. The reality is we need skilled people in the tech space to solve some of these problems and help people on the front line,” she said.

Virtual hackathons are happening around the world as citizens are moved to apply their own area of expertise to the challenges of COVID-19, the infection caused by the novel coronavirus. In late March, the Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design organized a five-day hackathon. It attracted 513 teams with 2,331 applicants from around the world.

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“I was surprised at how productive the teams were even though they were all separated in their homes,” the center’s executive director Youseph Yazdi said in an email Friday. “They were making prototypes with stuff around the house, building apps together, sharing online sticky notes and white boards. And they seemed to be having fun, too.

“What impressed me the most is the level of passion the teams had to create something that will be useful, quickly. Usually hackathons are about making the next Instagram or Facebook, but these participants were focused on the opportunity to help.”

Hackathons have been around for about 20 years. They originally were groups of people in exploratory programming to try to quickly overcome a problem.

They later became a way to quickly develop new software and innovate.

Raminder Lotay

At the FedEx Institute, the hackathon has morphed to 24- or 36-hour in-person sessions that typically begin on a Friday night and include break-out sessions and problem-solving on specific issues throughout the weekend.

“Originally, instead of taking a weeklong workshop to solve a problem, it was doing it in a combined space of 36 or 48 hours,” Latoy said.

The idea, he said, is that companies or even individuals may not have the resources to solve issues or innovate at the level they need.

But with volunteer expertise at the table, “all of a sudden you have a group of, say five people who say your app needs to do this.”

Virtual hackathons run longer, he said, “because it’s hard to keep everyone engaged on a virtual platform for 24, 36, 48 hours.”

Donndelinger, who moved here from Arizona, senses a creative zeitgeist in people here that, when melded across disciplines, could produce some powerful COVID ideas.

“I would love to see something actionable that can be further implemented after the event that serves the community in one form or fashion. It can be simple. It can be complex. It could be grand.”

Dave Myers (left), Ernest McCracken and Rich Thompson (right) with the Midsouth Makers donate their time to assemble face shields for the Memphis Medical Society on March 29, 2020. The group of tinkerers used 3-D printers to create the frame and a laser cutter to make a matching transparent shield. (Jim Weber/Daily Memphian)

The rapid spread of the coronavirus has energized grassroots makers around the world to innovate, including turning out millions of face shields and masks, from everyday materials.

On a Sunday afternoon in late March, the Memphis Makers made 450 face shields with plastic headbands the members printed on their home 3D printers.

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“The next Sunday, we made 2,700,” said Rich Thompson, president of the group and a systems engineer at Dell Technologies. “The next Sunday, Easter Sunday, we made 3,100 in a little over two hours.

“One of the great things about the tech community is everybody knows everybody; everybody knows where you work. Everybody knows that when something needs to get done, you’ve got people you can reach out to to get the help you need,” Thompson said.

“This COVID-19 hackathon is a great place for people to leverage the network where you’ve got people who know technology and know how to build solutions.”

For the hackathon schedule, go here. To register, go here.