Pictured – Dr Cris de Groot – Senior Academic Leader, Creative Industries; Tameem Saloojee – student; Evandah Steadman – student; Paul Woodruffe, Senior Lecturer and Academic Leader, Creative Industries
Senior Creative Industries lecturer Paul Woodruffe took out some of the top honours at the annual Datacomp Hackathon; a weekend-long event that challenges participants to design technology that creates genuine connections between business and people.
The theme of his year’s Hackathon was emotional experience and teams were asked to imagine and design a future where technology provides a deeper emotional connection and experience for people. Ideas are developed into prototypes over 48 hours and presented in a Dragon’s Den-style judging event at the end.
Paul’s project team developed an app “Piki” which focuses on creating connections, opportunities for work, and personal development for Auckland’s Homeless Community. Paul’s team also won top honours for the Best UX Design. The Piki project’s app was also chosen as one of two apps that would be funded to realisation.
One of Paul Woodruffe’s works ‘The Gift’, currently on display at the NKB Gallery
Unitec BCE students also met with success over the weekend. Tameem Saloojee took out the award for Best Student Designer and Evander Steadman for Best Social Master. Evander’s team ‘Taupuhipuhi’ also took out the first prize overall for its app which was designed to address suicide.
The annual event, held in Datacom’s Auckland offices, attracted hundreds of Datacom staff, customers, volunteers and design students from across Asia and Australasia.
Paul Woodruffe is also currently exhibiting at the NKB Gallery in Mt Eden in honour of the gallery’s tenth anniversary. Paul was one of the first artists to exhibit at the gallery when it opened in 2008 and his work explores his love of Medieval garden painting and patterns found in Eastern fabrics and ceramics.
The exhibition runs until 4 September 2018.