Landgate and its supporters transformed the iconic Midland Town Hall into the venue for WA’s first junior app development hackathon – HackED.
The event saw 120 students in 24 teams from seven schools across Perth compete to develop map-based apps to help solve a diverse range of problems. The Town Hall was filled to capacity with the students, their teachers and industry mentors.
Landgate Chief Executive Mike Bradford said he was impressed by the quality of the entries.
“The students were enthusiastic and engaged throughout the day as they worked on their challenges,” Mr Bradford said.
“They used their creativity as well as the power of location information and technology to develop innovative projects.”
The HackED 2015 prize for Innovation went to ‘JASE Squad’ from John Calvin Christian College in Armadale for developing an app base on creating a ‘pop-up’ mining town that is sustainable and family friendly.
The prize for best pitch went to ‘Common Threads’ from Mirrabooka Senior High for developing an app concept that would help unite cultures from across the world by celebrating the ‘common threads’ between them, such as annual celebrations.
Morley Senior High School’s ‘Team Real’ won best hack for its app dealing with traffic congestion.
The prize for location went to ‘Sacred Heart Team 2’ from Sacred Heart College in Sorrento for its app to help the community understand harmful impacts by humans on the environment.
Morley Senior High School student Akshaya Ravichandran said HackED was an amazing experience.
“We worked well as a team and were really supportive of each other,” she said.
“Our project made us realise that there are many innovative things we can do with location data.”
Ajilon and the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute sponsored the major prizes.
Esri Australia supplied the ArcGIS On-line software underpinning the event, which was gifted to all the schools involved.
Amcom kindly provided the WiFi and comms for HackED 2015.
Bankwest made laptops available to the teams.
The City of Swan assisted with the venue and parking.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics, Spatial Industries Business Association and Geospatial Frameworks provided other prizes for the teams.
Landgate and its partners connected to schools through EdConnect Australia (the School Volunteer Program) and JustStartIT.
Schools involved in HackED 2015 were:
- Armadale Senior High School
- Governor Stirling Senior High School
- Hampton Senior High School
- John Calvin Christian College – Armadale
- Morley Senior High School
- Mirrabooka Senior High School
- Sacred Heart College
Read more about HackED.
Contact: Karen McPherson, Media and Ministerial Adviser
Phone: +61 (0)8 9273 7514
