Hacktoberfest 2021 welcome speech

Dy. Chief DEO of Trashigang Dzongkhag
Judges from Sherubtse college
A representative from BBS
Principal, Vice Principal, and staff of host school
Participants parents
Distinguished Guests, Ladies, and Gentlemen

Kuzo Zangpo and very welcome to the first-ever HacktoberFest organized in eastern Bhutan and particularly in Jampeling Central School. Thank you for your presence. We, the organizing team, are much more delighted to have you all here.

Well, I am Dawa Penjor representing my co-coordinators, the Vice Principal, and Mrs. Tandin Wangmo would like to give a brief introduction to today’s event.
HacktoberFest is a combination of three words: Hackathon, October, and Festival. In a more generalized term, it’s a Hackathon Festival organized in October. To celebrate the day participants will pitch their own mobile applications developed in MIT App Inventor on the theme “App that can solve problems in a school and the community during a pandemic”

The main objectives of organizing such events are:

  • To achieve His Majesty’s vision to enhance and promote technology
  • To promote STEM education in the school
  • To appreciate the creative ideas of the students to build mobile apps
  • To encourage self-learning

HacktoberFest 2021 has nine teams comprising 46 members where they could develop nine mobile apps which will be presented to all shortly. Developing mobile apps is a new concept to my students however working tirelessly and exploring on their own could come up with nine usable apps within a month. They worked a maximum of 2 hours every after school and on weekends in the IT lab. And we started this journey on September 15.

hacktoberfest participants
All the participants, guests, judges, and organizers

The platform they used to develop mobile apps is MIT AppInventor, a block-based programming language. Handling the MIT AppInventor platform wasn’t challenging to my students though they are new to it. This is because, in August, all the students of Bhutan received a free account of the code monkey platform from His Majesty as a royal solera. CodeMonkey platform is a gamified platform where students will learn programming by playing games. Since my students used the code monkey platform, developing apps in MIT AppInventor wasn’t challenging for them. I on behalf of all the students would like to thank His Majesty for the profound solera.

This event was financially supported by the Dzongkhag Administration of Trashigang, the Royal Education Council, and the Ministry of Education. Personally, I would like to thank the Chief DEO of Trashigang Dzongkhag, Mr. Thinley, ICT curriculum developer at REC, Mr. Yeshey Lhendup, Dy. Chief Program Officer, School Planning and Coordination Division at MoE to whom I have personally contacted. Thank you for the support.

I would like to end my speech with the quote by Bill gates: “We are changing the world with technology”.
With this, I wish all the best to the participants and have a joyful event for all the guests and audience gathered here.

Thank you
Dawa Penjor
(Organizer)