Bringing Down the Mexican Tech Mafia: How Hackers Stopped a $9.3 Million Fraud Maria Rocio Paniagua - TechCrunch
go to original April 15, 2013

“When the geeks go marching in, good stuff can happen, but if everyone joins in, real change can take place.” That’s what the hackers and team behind Codeando México, a civil innovation platform where government and organizations publish projects, thought when they launched the #app115 challenge, an app competition that aimed to prove that great code can be very inexpensive if motivated by the right reasons.

What motivated them? A couple of weeks ago, the Mexican House of Representatives announced that they were planning to pay $9.3 million to have an app developed. The app would work on mobile devices and would monitor what went on in the sessions: bills, context, statements and media analysis. According to one of Mexico’s most widely read newspapers, they had hired a company called Pulso Legislativo (a company that allegedly has questionable relations with current and former legislators from the party in power) and had agreed to 32 monthly payments of about $290,000.

The cost caused outrage, because it appeared to be another case of fund misuse by the government. The team from Codeando México wrote a blog post breaking down the figure: “It is more money than what the three most active VCs funds invested in Mexican startups in 2011 and 2012. It is buying a taco for 11,500,000 mexicans, it is paying the annual scholarship support for 306,667 students or broadband access for a year for 17,500 families. It is what a team of developers would charge you to develop Angry Birds 77 times… you get the point by now.”

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