After two sleepless nights, countless ideas, debugging sessions, and team discussions, we finally made it to the finish line.
I recently had the opportunity to participate in an in-house hackathon at Zone01, focused on one of the most important challenges facing communities and businesses today: the Green Economy.
The challenge wasn't simply to build software.
We had to identify a real-world problem, understand who was affected by it, and use technology to design a solution that could make a meaningful difference.
The Challenge
We were given seven different tracks to choose from:
- 🌊 Lake Victoria Water Quality Monitoring & Intelligence Platform
- 💧 Smart Irrigation & Water Management for Smallholder Farmers
- 🌱 Carbon Footprint & Sustainability Reporting for SMEs
- ☀️ Solar Installation Monitoring & Asset Management Platform
- ♻️ Smart Waste Management & Route Optimization
- 🌧️ Climate Risk Intelligence & Resilience Platform
- 🐟 Fish Traceability Platform
After discussing the different challenges, my team decided to take on Track 6: Climate Risk Intelligence & Resilience Platform.
And that is where Resili was born.
🌧️ The Problem We Wanted to Solve
Flooding is a major challenge for communities living in flood-prone areas, particularly around the Lake Victoria region.
One of the biggest problems isn't necessarily the lack of information.
It's getting the right information to the right people early enough to act.
When communities receive warnings too late, there may not be enough time to move people, protect property, relocate livestock, or prepare essential supplies.
We asked ourselves:
What if technology could help communities receive trusted flood warnings days before a disaster occurs?
That question became the foundation of our project.
Introducing Resili
Resili is a climate resilience and early-warning platform designed to help communities prepare for potential flooding before it happens.
The idea is to combine verified information, risk intelligence, and community communication into a single platform.
Instead of simply telling someone:
"A flood is coming."
We wanted the system to answer:
- Where is the risk?
- How serious is it?
- Who is likely to be affected?
- How much time do people have to prepare?
- What actions should they take?
- Where should they go if evacuation becomes necessary?
The goal is to move from reacting to disasters to preparing for them.
🤝 Working With Local Authorities
One of the most important parts of our idea was collaboration with county governments and relevant authorities.
A climate warning system is only useful if people trust the information it provides.
For that reason, Resili was designed around the idea of using verified and signed sources to communicate important warnings.
The system could help authorities:
- Monitor potential flood risks.
- Identify vulnerable areas.
- Issue verified warnings.
- Notify affected communities.
- Provide recommended preparedness actions.
- Coordinate evacuation efforts when necessary.
This creates a communication chain between risk intelligence → authorities → communities.
🧠 More Than Just an Alert System
We didn't want Resili to be another application that simply sends notifications.
We wanted it to provide actionable information.
For example, instead of only receiving:
⚠️ Flood Warning
a resident could receive information such as:
HIGH FLOOD RISK
📍 Your area may be affected.
⏱️ Prepare for possible evacuation.
🎒 Keep essential documents and supplies ready.
🐄 Move livestock and valuable equipment to safer locations.
📢 Follow instructions from verified local authorities.
This approach makes the information more useful because people know what to do next.
💻 Building Under Pressure
The most interesting part of the hackathon wasn't just the final product.
It was the process.
We had a very limited amount of time to go from:
Problem → Idea → Architecture → Development → Testing → Demo
And we had to make decisions quickly.
There were moments when things didn't work.
There were features we wanted to implement but couldn't complete within the available time.
And, of course, there was a lot of debugging. 😅
But that is probably one of the biggest lessons I took from the experience:
You don't need perfect conditions to build something meaningful. You need a clear problem, a focused team, and the willingness to keep iterating.
👨💻 What I Learned
This hackathon taught me several things beyond writing code.
1. Start With the Problem
It's easy as a developer to immediately think:
"What technology can I use?"
But the better question is:
"What problem are we actually solving?"
Understanding the problem helped us decide which features were actually important.
2. Teamwork Matters
Building a project under time pressure requires everyone to contribute.
Ideas need to be challenged.
Tasks need to be divided.
People need to communicate.
And sometimes you need someone on the team to say:
"This feature is nice, but we don't have time for it. Let's focus on what matters."
That discipline was extremely important for us.
3. Constraints Can Improve Your Thinking
Having only a short amount of time forced us to focus on the MVP.
Instead of trying to build everything, we had to ask:
What is the smallest version of this idea that can demonstrate real value?
That's a lesson I want to carry into future projects.
🏆 The Result
After two intense and sleepless nights, we successfully completed the hackathon and presented Resili.
I'm extremely proud of what our team managed to accomplish in such a short period.
But more importantly, I'm grateful for the opportunity to work on a problem that goes beyond technology.
Climate change and extreme weather events affect real people.
As developers, we have an opportunity to build systems that don't just make life more convenient, but can potentially help communities become more informed, prepared, and resilient.
A huge thank you to my amazing teammates and everyone at Zone01 who made this experience possible.
Two sleepless nights.
One challenging problem.
One great team.
And one solution we are proud to call Resili. 🌍💻
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