By any standards, nine-years-old is pretty young to be writing computer code. Let alone doing it for 24-hours straight. And hoping to save the world in the process.
But that's how one primary school programmer and her father spent last weekend, together with more than 300 other volunteer coders. Holed up in Mountain View, Google's California headquarters, the software developers competed to help solve some of the world's most intractable problems.
The all-day "hackathon" is the brainwave of US non-profit, Code for India. Under the strapline "think global, hack local", the California-based outfit hopes to encourage one million programmers to donate their time for humanitarian ends. Now in its second year, the event runs simultaneously in Silicon Valley and Bangalore, India's tech capital.
"It's a hundred times more exciting than going out to watch a good movie," says Karl Mehta, founder of Code for India – nicknamed "Peace Corps for geeks" in some quarters. "But what makes this hackathon unique is that they [programmers] are also making a social impact because the challenges they are solving are on-the-ground problems."
Arriving in the US as a 25-year-old immigrant from Mumbai, Mehta followed many of his tech-savvy compatriots to Silicon Valley. His Midas moment came in the shape of Playspan, an online payments business. In 2011, five years after founding the venture, Mehta sold to Visa. The deal netted him $240m.
Mehta admitted that he "almost retired" there and then. Instead, he ploughed his business and tech skills (and a small chunk of his personal fortune) into supporting ventures that promise social as well as financial returns.
One of his early punts is the renewable electricity start-up Simpa Networks, which sells "energy in micro units" (ie, power by the day, rather than monthly) to slum dwellers in India. He is also backing PayClip, another base of the pyramid enterprise – this time giving street vendors the technology to receive payments by credit or debit card.
But it's the hackathon that's particularly exciting him at present. Code for India's "geek squads" – as Mehta jokingly refers to them – have come up with around 70 humanitarian-focused apps to date.
Examples include everything from Spotter, an app that allows the public to alert local authorities to potholes and garbage in the street, through to One Vote for A Better India, a voter e-registration solution used extensively in the recent Indian election.
Mehta's credits Hurricane Sandy for the inspiration for Code for India. When ferocious storms hit the US eastern seaboard in October 2012, he was doing a stint in the White House as a "presidential innovation fellow". Together with some fellow programmers, Mehta helped create a map-based app that would direct drivers to functioning petrol stations in New York and New Jersey. Within "just a couple of hours", it was up and running.
"It was a great experience to see how you can combine tech people with non-profits that can have volunteers on the ground to provide real-time data [and] with the government which has the power to get things deployed faster," he says.
Programmers at the recent hackathon were invited to pit their wits against a host of challenges, from tackling financial illiteracy to improving girls' education. Particular priority was given to natural disaster management – a focal theme for the World Bank, which sponsored the event. A related competition focused on enabling citizens to track how loans for World Bank-backed projects are being spent.
At present, Code for India relies entirely on volunteer support. Beyond the hackathon, teams of programmers work in their free time to refine and perfect the apps. To that end, several global technology companies are promoting the scheme among their workforce. The list includes the likes of Cisco, Google, Intel, Infosys and Whipro,
The prospect of monetising the apps seems like an attractive option but Mehta is cautious For starters, many of the charity's beneficiaries are not in a position to pay much, he argues. He also fears that bringing money-making into the picture might undercut the philanthropic motivations of the volunteers.
While his own bank balance may be bulging these days, the former start-up owner also knows most coders enjoy their jobs (and the prospect of future fortunes) too much to give them up. Nor are they especially enthused by going into poor neighbourhoods to paint school playgrounds, he adds. "They would rather make an impact on the world through their tech talent, which they can do sitting at their desks."
As with most of Silicon Valley's self-made superstars, Code for India's founder has an extremely, "can do" approach. He only offers one hint of doubt, and that centres on his latest venture's name. He wonders if "India" could give the wrong impression: "My vision is really for a code for the universe." That level of ambition is what makes millionaires. It could soon be making for a better world too.
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