What is happening in Sri Lanka?
Sri Lanka is facing its worst economic crisis in more than 100 years. Soaring inflation and a rapidly-
depreciating local currency since early 2022 means that the country can no longer afford basic goods.
A lack of foreign reserves has led to power cuts that last 10 or more hours every day. Food/fuel shortages and historic levels of inflation leave people hungry. Access to fuel/gas is severely constricted; those who have the time and patience wait in fuel/gas lines for up to 5 days.
After daily protests against the government starting in April, thousands of protestor stormed the presidents house on July 9th 2022 chasing the incumbent president out of office.
How Did CFTG Help?
CFTG mobilized data scientists and developers from Silicon Valley and around the world to develop a product that could help Sri Lankans.
On April 8th, developers from Silicon Valley and beyond volunteered their time for a 24-hour hackathon at Stanford University to create a free app for Sri Lankans.
This app, Ekata (meaning Together in Sinhalese), provides a free service allowing Sri Lankans to retrieve critical information about power cuts in real time, all from the convenience of their phone.
Ekata.lk is a free service that provides personalized, real-time information on power cut schedules, delivered via SMS.
W We are grateful to our sponsors who made this event possible.
