PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government will organise a “civic hackathon” in Peshawar to engage information technology experts to help and improve e-governance in the province.

Minister for information technology and agriculture Shahram Khan Tarakai said at a press conference here on Tuesday that the provincial information technology board had planned to organise a three-day event in this regard at the University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, from Jan 31 to Feb 2. He said that young IT experts from across the province would be engaged in this first ‘civic hackathon’ to crowd source solutions to civic issues. He said that the winning teams would be included in a six-month fellowship programme.

The World Bank would also assist the programme. The main objective of the event, the minister said, was to provide speedy solutions to the technological problems currently faced by different government departments and entities, including web designing.

He said that the fellowship programme was likely to be started from June next and the government would support the participants in future. He said that eleven departments had identified their problems and the IT board after evaluation would suggest solutions. He said that teams of IT experts would brainstorm civic problems and come up with the web, mobile and SMS solutions to problems.