Two University of the Sunshine Coast teams took out top honours at the GovHack National Awards held at Sydney last Saturday night.
What’s more, local techie geniuses also won two runner-up prizes and received three honourable mentions.
These national awards come off the back of a very successful Queensland Awards outcome recently, summarised here.
The 2018 event saw government, education and industry collaborate. It united Sunshine Coast Council, Noosa Council, the Peregian Digital Hub, the University of Sunshine Coast (USC) and RDA Sunshine Coast to help enable data hacking activity and support new skills development.
USC had 50 students take part to explore science data on disaster preparedness, sustainability, litter and traffic challenges.
The first national award-winning USC team was I’m Learning, which won the Bounty: Industry Meets Academia Award for its Academic Connect project: https://hackerspace.govhack.org/projects/academic_connect_186.
Next up, Get Active USC won the Healthy Communities Challenge National Award for its Get Active project: https://hackerspace.govhack.org/projects/get_active_38. Honourable mention to local team, Unafraid of the Dark Web, for its Healthy Communities – Fitness and Community Portal project.
Runners-up included Noosa Hydro for the national Exploring the Oceans award: https://hackerspace.govhack.org/projects/noosahydro_172 and Sunshine Coast Council for the Best Government Participation – Local Council award.
Two honourable mentions went to local team The Real Slim Shady, for its Fail-a-corn project, for the award, On your mark, get set, startup! and the A New Start award: https://hackerspace.govhack.org/projects/fail_a_corn_267.|
GovHack 2018 was held at 26 venues across Australia, involving 200 volunteers and 100 mentors. It also saw 240 projects submitted, featuring 850 competitors.
Next year’s GovHack dates are September 6-8, 2019. Mark it in your diary now!