On 11 February, the Charter Project Africa, in partnership with a coalition of African activist organisations and global partners co-hosted a hackathon in Lagos to help watchdogs build digital resources to tackle violent extremism in elections. 

Participants were given access to a catalogue of existing open source software solutions and data, as well as support from technical experts to either customise proven tools, or build their own solutions to safeguard Nigeria’s 2023 presidential elections from online extremists. 

The hybrid event was facilitated by Code for Africa in collaboration with Democracy Lab and saw 27 participants from Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, the UK and the US take part. Six teams developed projects at the hackathon - Djudge, Youth Evolve, C Watch, PeaceLab, ChatVE, and Policy Engine UK. 

The teams pitched solutions including a chrome extension to identify misinformation on political news websites, platforms to educate youth and other demographics on misinformation, ways to network with fact-checkers, and applications to counter hate speech, incitement, and conspiracy claims. Leaders in Nigerian civil service, civil society, software development, media and academic research fields assessed the pitches based on feasibility, impact, application and resourcefulness. The winning team ChatVE  from Nigeria presented an AI chatbot that can be integrated into Slack and other platforms as a virtual assistant to educate voters during elections. They are currently working on scaling and rolling out their tool. The runner up, also from Nigeria, Youth Evolve, showcased a mobile site that tackles misinformation about democracies and civic participation, and provides accurate information to empower young people.

Charter Project grantee, Vert-Mont Ong demoed their digital platform FierVolunteer to participants. The platform aims to increase the political and civic participation of youth.