Water is essential to sustain life and economic development. Yet the number of people without access remains immense: 2.5 billion with no sanitation and 887 million without access to safe water. The sustainable management of water resources is also acquiring new urgency in the face a global population expected to reach nine billion by 2050, economic development spurring demand for more and better food, and increasing hydrological variability due to climate change.

New ideas, better open data and innovative instruments are needed to respond to the world’s water challenges. In search of just that, the World Bank and its partners are joining forces in order to seed a new community  of software developers, designers and water experts interested in co-creating new solutions to water-related problems.

What is a hackathon? A hackathon event is an intensive marathon of brainstorming and programming, where software developers and designers collaborate to create new tools for solving a set of problems.

What is WaterHackathon? WaterHackathon is a hackathon dedicated to solving water problems facing developing countries, such as:

- access to  safe drinking water and adequate sanitation
- flooding and drought (i.e., climate change issues)
- irrigation and watershed management
- environmental pollution

When and where is the WaterHackathon? The two-day marathon hacking event will take place on October 21 – 23, 2011, with multiple global locations- including Cairo- bringing together software developers, designers and water experts to solve – “hack” – real-world water problems.

The community. We need water experts and water users from around the world to submit their problems. While not all these problems will lend themselves to technology solutions, we believe documenting pressing local water problems is the first step to breaking down barriers for non-traditional partners. For those problems that do get solved, we will share the solutions and support teams in getting their applications deployed.

Check out the latest problem definitions, and learn how to submit your own.

Click here to register for the Water Hackathon event in Cairo, and see the WaterHackathon website for more information.