Sub-Saharan Africa Developers Invited To Submit Proposals At Lesotho For The Financial Management Hackathon
Dec. 16, 2022, 12:40 p.m.
Modernisation of public service serves as a backbone for many governments to meet demands of the evolving industries, population growth and government business. E-Government has come to a step toward smart and modernized governance to provide efficiency in service delivery.
Various countries such as India and Singapore have demonstrated that the implementation of Integrated Financial Management Information Systems (IFMIS) presents additional benefits if fully utilized in a secure and people-centred approach.
In adopting this shift, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) in Lesotho embarked on a Public Financial Management (PFM) digitalization journey in 2009 with an implementation of IFMIS solutions which was further upgraded in 2019 to resolve issues faced in its implementation, particularly to strengthen the quality of financial reporting. The hackathon is an additional step in the digitalization of the PFM by Ministry of Finance and as such, innovative approach to enhance IFMIS.
Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ministry of Finance in Lesotho will be hosting the Lesotho Financial Management hackathon from the 24th to the 26th of January 2023, in Maseru. The hackathon is open for registration for participants in Sub-Saharan Africa and a team of up to 5 members is required to reflect skills in cryptographic expertise, enterprise architecture and software development.
Dubbed LesothoPFMHackathon, the hackathon aims to design a practical and cutting-edge technological solution to authenticate transactions and documents in IFMIS by users, in the form of a digital signature utility which authenticates against the National Digital Identity infrastructure.
Additionally, the solutions that will be worked on have the potential to be used across the public sector for transaction processing. The solution will automate the PFM processes by doing away with the paper-based processing of transactions in the system, therefore improving efficiency and effectiveness of PFM processes. They will also strengthen the internal controls and prevent further accumulation of expenditure arrears by enhancing the coverage of commitment controls and e-Payments.
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Hackathon Information
● DATE: 24 - 26 January 2023
● LOCATION: Maseru, Lesotho
● TARGET: 5 teams to participate physically
● PRIZE: $10 000 for the winning team
● REGISTRATION: www.lesothopfmhackathon.com
Registration closes on the 21st of December 2022. Up to 5 teams with best proposals will be selected to participate at the onsite hackathon in Lesotho. Travel and accommodation expenses are covered by the organizers of the hackathon.
Teams are required to put forward a secure innovative solution in the proposal together with a high level architecture of the digital signature utility. Teams will be taken through a Technical Mentoring and Design Thinking event on the 15th of December to help ideate and compose proposals that will best fit requirements.
The digital signature infrastructure will also improve the controls over payment processing and as a result there will be less chances of payment fraud. Additionally it will strengthen the efficiency of the Treasury systems by decreasing the financial cost associated with the manual processing of transactions.
During the onsite hackathon, teams will be assisted and guided by industry experts and government officials in Lesotho and surrounding countries. The MInistry of Home Affairs in Lesotho will assist participants in accessing and authenticating into the national ID infrastructure.
Registration is free and open to participants in the Sub-Saharan African region until the 21st of December 2022 on www.lesothopfmhackathon.com
tag: Africa, Funding, Fintech, hackathon, Developers,
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