KUCHING, August 26: The 3-day Grand Challenge Hackathon Series Kuching ended here today with Team Markers coming up top, Native 404 in second place and Summit third. They beat nine other teams to earn the chance to pitch their refined solutions to Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) in a month’s time.
The challenge was held at Teras Digital Innovation Hub at Icom Square, and the whole idea was for the participants to develop new solutions, including devices, to be used in the forests to address issues such as to help hikers navigate through the jungle, to enable hikers to communicate to station, to report crime or send distress signal with coordinates, and to receive updates or information from SFC.
This includes creating innovative ways to promote national parks.
For their winning efforts for now, the three winners received cash prizes of RM6,000, RM4,000 and RM2,000 respectively. But for one of them, their proudest moment will come in about one month’s time, when SFC picks the best among their refined solutions.
I Tech Training Sdn Bhd (I Tech Train) project manager Velmuruga Kalimuthu explained that the winning teams would now be mentored by iCube, Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDeC) and I Tech Train to complete the lacking part of their solutions.
“They will be given another time frame to brush up on their solutions, implementation, business models, costs, and so on. From there, we will arrange for a presentation with SFC management after one month from now for them to pick and implement one of it,” he told DayakDaily.
Velmuruga said the winners would also be sent to Kuala Lumpur to be trained for two days in a hack clinic by major startup companies.
“These startup guys will train and guide them on how to commercialise their products,” he said.
In addition, the winners would also be in Kuala Lumpur this Oct 2 for the Big Tech and IoT (Internet of Things) conference. There they would exhibit their products in front of some 200 city council officials from all over Malaysia who will also be interested in their solutions. In addition, there will be some 500 people from this region coming for the conference.
“The participants will get the opportunities to implement their ideas or get investors to invest in their ideas,” he said. — DayakDaily
