Children's health and safety trumps 'hackathon' event

Winners of the annual Datacomp. A 48-hour event which ran over the weekend. Photo / Supplied

A 48-hour "hackathon" gathered close to 300 participants at the weekend with the goal of designing technology for social change.

The competition, Datacomp, was a sprint event with developers, graphic designers, IT professionals and students hosted by Datacom and held at their new building in the Wynyard Quarter.

Teams worked throughout the entire weekend to come up with, and execute their ideas.

Datacom chief executive Greg Davidson told the Herald on Sunday morning there were a "lot of tired looking faces" at the event.

Government departments, district health boards, and energy companies such as Vector were involved in and supported the event. Datacom partnered with Microsoft and Amazon Web Services for the event.

The winner, team Happy Life, developed an app which can collect and collate data for people who are receiving training from charity service Child Matters. New legislation in New Zealand means charities are required to provide quantitative data and regular reporting to ensure funding.

Happy Life developed the app so that police, teachers, counsellors and front line service people who are receiving training can collect data which can then be correlated with actual governmental concern data to tackle and prevent child abuse across NZ.

The runner-up, Team Desgenerates, developed a simple to use way of incorporating charity donations in existing Datacom payroll structures.

The third-place team used the idea of "track and trace" and applied it to a children's hospital site, where parents will be able to receive notifications, receiving for instance, an alert that their child has finished at radiology.

The panel of judges included Lisa King from Eat My Lunch, GirlBoss NZ founder Alexia Hilbertidou, along with Davidson and the Datacom Group chief executive Jonathan Ladd.

"The goal of Datacomp is to practise and therefore learn new ways of developing innovative solutions to the challenges faced by our customers - and society," Davidson said.

"A range of Datacom customers have posed some tricky real-world problems with a strong socially responsible focus, problems that if solved will improve the lives of people around New Zealand.

"Innovation sits at the heart of everything we do, it's the engine that drives our business, so Datacomp is about channelling that innovative know-how to solve a number of social issues and get better results for our customers."