Data exists in Mongolia but it is not collected, structured and easily accessible today. Lack of such CSA data becomes a significant constraint in our daily life. We shouldn’t have to spend minutes and hours to find a nearby coffee shop that has fast internet and is open late night nor should we have to find a good Italian restaurant that is good for family. We shouldn’t have to spend hours in traffic only to know that the grocery store is closed, nor should we have to become victim of bad products and services because we simply didn’t know about it upfront. We shouldn’t have to keep repeating the same information over and over again, when we could simply store it one place and make it easily accessible. We want to have access to the information we need within a matter of milliseconds, compare different options and make a decision right away. If we are impressed with something, we want to share it with the others. These are some of the very common problems faced by locals, businesses, expats, repats and tourists in Mongolia today. Lack of such CSA data is complemented by social media posts asking for information and recommendation, word of mouth and trial and error. There is no feedback loop on experiences and impressions back to the general public to help others have access to that same information. To describe this situation in a simple term, we came up with: “black-box-data effect”. One of the factors of developing a country based on economy is having insight into the people. The way to have that insight is by having good data. And the way to get that data is the CSA phase.

HUB is a hackathon that we are proposing to organize in summer of 2017 to address the challenge of the black-box-data effect in Mongolia based on some of the latest and greatest technologies. This will help expats, tourists, repats, locals and businesses connect with each other, providing more data insights and better development and business opportunities. We aim to proactively remove all obstacles concerning administration, logistics, communication, technologies and platform so that participants in the HUB only need to worry about implementing their wildest imaginations and creativities and solve a real-world problem. Our utmost goal of this hackathon is to spot an i-smart (innovative, specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused and time-bound) solution and a group of talents that can take on the project beyond the hackathon and turn it into a real-world product. The following are the details of the HUB.