SINGAPORE – Hold on to your unwanted items, because the authorities may soon launch a Carousell-like platform to find new homes for them, reducing waste.
Users can list items like television sets and furniture on a classifieds-style app that will alert charities to the new listings for the first two days, before making them available to the public.
The platform, called FreestuffSG, was one of at least 30 pitches at the Open Government Products (OGP) hackathon, Hack for Public Good, which held its finale last Thursday.
Roughly one in four pitches will be adapted for real-world OGP products, said its organisers. The annual hackathon serves as a catalyst for the majority of OGP apps, including ScamShield and RedeemSG that have been launched to the masses.
The Straits Times looks at five pitches that may soon see the light of day.
Pair
Civil servants will get a helping hand from the software powering OpenAI’s intelligent assistant ChatGPT to draft speeches and reports within the next two months.
Once fully launched, the bot can draw information from existing government documents, helping officials complete tasks more efficiently without having to trawl through stacks of files.
The team of five struck an agreement with Microsoft, which runs the platform, to ensure data handled by the Government is kept confidential and out of sight to the platform’s service providers.
FreestuffSG
How do you stop the public from throwing away items that could be useful to someone else? Hackathon team FreestuffSG may have an answer, with a classifieds-like platform that allows users to list items for others to claim.
Once posted, items will be visible only to registered charities for the first two days. After that, listings will be visible to all users. Users will be verified using their SingPass to ensure they are genuine.
Paws Together
Many cats and dogs in Singapore are microchipped so that any stray can be easily identified and reunited with the owner. But this can take time as there are multiple pet owner registries here, said OGP team Paws Together.
It has come up with a plan to bring together all microchip data on pet owners with their consent.
Doing so would speed up the process of returning lost pets home, said team member Dong Wen Jia, 27, adding that she hopes the pitch will pave the way to make microchipping of all cats mandatory. This will make it easier to identify owners, and deter those who are tempted to abandon their pets, since they can be found.
SafeGuard
A hackathon group has developed a platform that can flag likely scam sites, in a bid to counter phishing scams which continue to surge online.
To check a site, users share the link on the SafeGuard app, which analyses the contents of the link. SafeGuard alerts users if the site’s contents match previously flagged websites and other signs that the group declined to disclose to prevent scammers from getting ahead.
The team is in talks to integrate this feature with the existing ScamShield, another OGP app that detects scam messages and calls.
Sorting Cap
Applications for many official schemes can take time to process due to the sheer number of documents that officers have to check manually.
The wait is especially stressful for those who need financial support, said the Sorting Cap team in its pitch on Friday.
The group aims to shorten wait times with a revamped platform for official schemes that can quickly detect eligible applicants.
Agency officers can submit new schemes, define the eligibility criteria and the details needed from applicants – like income level, birth date and housing type – and allow the platform to identify those who fit the bill.
Correction note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to the event Hack for Public Good as Hackathon for Public Good. This has been corrected. We are sorry for the error.
