Carry On, a project to help victims of military sexual trauma won the Tech for Justice Hackathon+ Veterans event on Saturday. The winners of the event were announced in the morning plenary session of ABA Techshow that wrapped up activities that took place during the preceding three days, and underscored the main themes of the conference.
The project won the first place with a $5,500 prize. Carry On features a chatbot that provides alerts, forums and real-time chat to connect victims with services alongside the right resources on how to file a report on military sexual trauma, get help or learn about their symptoms, according to Devpost.
Techshow faculty president Adriana Linares was the one to kick off the session by announcing the winners of the event. The second prize and $2,500 went to Veterans Will Center while the third prize went to Vet's Panic Button.
"We are excited by the tremendous support we had from everyone," president of Internetbar.org and co-organizer of the event Jeffrey Aresty, said in an email. He said that the veteran groups have committed to using the justice innovations both for themselves and to be a beacon for all those suffering from military sexual trauma who need access to justice.
According to ABA Journal, there was also a panel of discussion featuring five women from legal councils who spoke about access-to-justice issues in the legal sphere, including incidents of military sexual trauma. The panel called forth greater collaboration and cooperation between people specifically in the legal tech sphere including the legal industry as a whole.
Perry Martinez, a member of the Center for Innovation's advisory council spoke about how collaboration between criminal lawyers and civil advocates helped create the center and encouraged those in attendance to take that spirit of cooperation back to their communities to combat military sexual trauma. She also expressed her desire to see lawyers being more involved in the tech creation process.
