Shelter Scotland to hold ‘hackathon’ to find digital solutions to Scotland’s housing crisis

Graeme Brown, Shelter Scotland - Image credit: Shelter Scotland

Housing and homelessness charity Shelter Scotland is conducting a ‘hackathon’ this weekend to source innovative solutions to Scotland’s housing problems.

The charity is looking for the help of people with coding and design skills as well as those with knowledge of housing or experience of homelessness to devise digital solutions to help those affected by Scotland’s housing crisis.

Teams at the hackathon, which runs from Friday to Sunday, will present their solutions to a judging panel of local tech leaders, entrepreneurs and housing professionals, who will announce the winning product on Sunday evening.

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Developers, designers, entrepreneurs, students and anyone else interested in technology or housing are invited to attend, with people who’ve experienced poor housing or homelessness particularly encouraged to attend.

The event is being hosted by Product Forge with speakers and mentors from Shelter Scotland and from the tech industry.

The three judges will be Shelter Scotland director Graeme Brown, senior product manager at FreeAgent Kate Ho and CEO of Bright Purple Resourcing Nick Price.

Conrad Rossouw, Digital Manager at Shelter Scotland, said: “This is going to be a really exciting weekend and we are all looking forward to seeing what the teams can come up with.

“From products which help private renters and landlords understand their rights and responsibilities to help for people who are digitally excluded as more welfare resources are moved online – including the roll-out of Universal Credit, we’re hoping for some innovative solutions to these very real issues.

“Other possible outcomes could be a solution to help us discover and understand more about the level of ‘hidden homelessness’ – people who don’t have a home of their own but rely on support from friends and family members – or ways of reaching people who are spending night after night rough sleeping.”

There will be a livestream running throughout the event and the event hashtag is #ShelterScotPF.