A team presents their ‘Ngāwari Enrol’ project which won the Best Use of Tech Award
Earlier this month we staged our first ever 48-hour hackathon – EduHack: Cultural 2019 – bringing together teams from Computing, Creative Industries and Applied Business, with representatives from industry partners IBM, IT Professionals New Zealand and Datacom.
Twenty-five students participated in the weekend event held in Te Puna, alongside a great turn out from mentors, judges and organisers.
Each team was challenged with generating new ideas and solutions that enhance, improve, or support the role that culture plays in education. They were urged to demonstrate their skills in a real-
world setting, addressing issues such as:
The judging panel which included Unitec’s Nick Kearns, Lecturer – School of Applied Business (second right) and Kaihautū Kimoro Taiepa (far right)
- how to reach hard-to-reach potential learners
- how to make education relevant and applicable for the future
- how to attract more Māori and Pacifica
- how to make our education cross-cultural and welcoming
- how to educate our whanau of the Māori culture through the sites of cultural significance
Sessions on Day 1 started with team-forming, where participants organised themselves into teams, or joined existing groups where there were skill gaps. Other sessions included design thinking, ideation, and pitch formulation. Although Day 1 officially concluded at 6pm, many participants stayed on at Unitec until late to continue working on their projects.
Prizegiving – (Left) Dila Beisembayeva, APM – School of Computing and Information Technology, (second left) Cris de Groot and (centre) Kaihautū Kimoro Taiepa with the ‘Student Hunt’ project team who won the Best Impact Award
Students worked on a variety of projects, from fixing the enrolment systems (with the help of AI) to creating a platform designed to educate Unitec whānau on the sites that carry a cultural significance; and from enabling students t succeed in classrooms and out in the workforce; to helping tourists navigate through what New Zealand has to offer.
The second day culminated in students presenting their projects to the team of judges, which included Midu Chandra, Head of Datacom Foundry; Isuru Fernando, Chief Design and Technology Officer IBM New Zealand; Nick Kearns, Lecturer at our School of Applied Business; Kimoro Taiepa, Kaihautū from our Maia Māori Centre; and Dominic Fritsche, student of MCP at Unitec and UX designer.
“It was incredible to observe the collaboration amongst the students from different disciplines,” said Dila Beisembayeva, School of Computing and Information Technology Academic Programme Manager. “Feedback from participants has been very positive, with many saying that they enjoyed working with others from different Schools, and seeing how their complimentary skillsets were useful in a group problem-solving context.”
“Throughout the event, our students demonstrated their commitment to TNK by both highlighting the cultural challenges we need to address, as well as finding ways to resolve them,” said Dila. “Our students applied the knowledge gained in the classroom to solving real-life problems and challenges, and did a fantastic job.”
The winning teams will pitch their ideas to IBM and Datacom later this month.
The results from Unitec’s inaugural Hackathon are:
- Distinguished Project – Kōrero
- Best Impact – Student Hunt
- Best Use of Tech – Ngāwari Enrol
- Best Design – Rāmaroa
- Best Business Idea – Ngāwari Enrol
Will the five Results listed above be described in more detail somewhere? They sound interesting.
Hi Daniel! thank you for your comment! Yes, now that the exams are over, I will ask the students to provide further details!