Winning project will be used to save lives at sea

Virtual reality games, chatbots and wearable tech were just some of the lifesaving ideas created at a special hackathon for the RNLI at Facebook’s HQ in London.

The hackathon was a women-only event organised by the social media giant and saw 250 take part.

Participants belonged to online meet-up groups including Ladies That UX and GeekGirl while others represented tech companies.

Participants were given an overview of the RNLI’s lifesaving service and the challenges the charity faces to help keep people safe from drowning before the hackathon began.

The winning concept focused on using augmented reality to prevent people from getting cut off by tides.

Martin Wilson, from the RNLI’s innovation team, said: ‘It was great to see so many talented people give up a day of their weekend to develop innovative concepts that could help the RNLI save more lives.

“There were some really great ideas of how we could enable communities to reduce drowning as part of their daily activity, which we’ll certainly be looking into in more detail.”

The charity will be looking at the winning idea, plus several other concepts generated through the event in more detail to see if they can be developed into real lifesaving products.

Amaal Mohamed, a member of the winning team said: “During the event we were surprised to learn how high the number of deaths caused by drowning are and wanted to create an effective and scalable solution to help.

“Not only did we learn a lot and create something we are really proud of, we also won the competition! It was a truly fun and inspiring experience.”