News
HackFest Report Back
On the 23,24 and 25 November the Department of Information technology and the DUT AppFactory hosted a hackathon or Hackfest. A Hackfest is an event in which programmers and others involved in software development, including interface designers, project managers, and others, collaborate intensively on software projects. The event was open to both professional developers and learners alike.
The Hackfest was run over three days and on day one attendees homed into a social or business problem. They also had the opportunity to put themselves into teams of five members. The event was themed as follows:
- Building Applications for Education: eEducation
- Building Internet of Things Applications
- Building Gamification Applications, and
- Building Artificial Intelligence Applications
Teams pitched ideas in one or a combination of the above themes. Four groups participated in the Hackfest and pitched the following ideas:
- Team 1: Building a facial recognition application to identify criminals
- Team 2: Building a bot to interactively teach and assess students
- Team 3: Building a tutoring application that connects students to tutors in real-time
- Team 4: Building a 3rd person shooting game to teach learners to recycle.
On the 23,24 and 25 November the Department of Information technology and the DUT AppFactory hosted a hackathon or Hackfest. A Hackfest is an event in which programmers and others involved in software development, including interface designers, project managers, and others, collaborate intensively on software projects. The event was open to both professional developers and learners alike.
The Hackfest was run over three days and on day one attendees homed into a social or business problem. They also had the opportunity to put themselves into teams of five members. The event was themed as follows:
- Building Applications for Education: eEducation
- Building Internet of Things Applications
- Building Gamification Applications, and
- Building Artificial Intelligence Applications
Teams pitched ideas in one or a combination of the above themes. Four groups participated in the Hackfest and pitched the following ideas:
- Team 1: Building a facial recognition application to identify criminals
- Team 2: Building a bot to interactively teach and assess students
- Team 3: Building a tutoring application that connects students to tutors in real-time
- Team 4: Building a 3rd person shooting game to teach learners to recycle.
Attendees were supported and mentored by professional developers. Brendon Page from Chillisoft Solutions Services and Pivendren Naik from Facebook Developer Circle: Durban were the judges for the Hackfest and provided mentoring support throughout the event. A number of prizes were sponsored courtesy of Facebook Developer Circle: Durban, the office of the DVC Research, Innovation & Engagement: Prof. Sibusiso Moyo and the department of Information Technology.
“Entrepreneurship in education seeks to provide learners with the skills and motivation to encourage entrepreneurial success. Events like the Hackfest encourage learning, creativity and collaboration while providing the necessary opportunities for entrepreneurship to flourish.” said Sameer Sabjee from the department of Information Technology.
Cassim Vanker from the DUT AppFactory added the South Africa has an unemployment rate of over 27%. “Universities have to work together with government and business to provide opportunities for those seeking employment. One of the ways we helping reduce this divide is through mentorship, idealization and hackathons.”
The winner for the Hackfest as adjudicated by the judges was Team 4. The team developed an interactive shooting game, using the DUT Ritson Campus as it’s backdrop.