Twin Hackathon is game on for SA and Netherlands students
South African university students and their counterparts from the Netherlands have until November 10 to produce a digital blueprint that will help to better manage the various operational spheres of the City of Johannesburg.
The City of Johannesburg will be the biggest beneficiary from the currently ongoing Digital Twin Hackathon at the Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct in Braamfontein.
The hackathon involved 15 students from South African universities and 15 of their counterparts from universities in the Netherlands and the projects stand to benefit policymaking for the City of Johannesburg on issues such as solving traffic congestion, public transport, waste collection, and management, infrastructure management and the built environment and asset management, issues that continue to bedevil the City.
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Speaking at the official launch of the hackathon, Deputy Ambassador of the Netherlands in South Africa Janneke Vrijland said she was delighted that the hackathon is finally underway and hopes that the event will be able to deliver the desired fruit on many issues that trouble the City of Johannesburg.
“The key to development lies in cooperation between nations and institutions such as universities in order to tackle societal issues that continue to hamper development. The students are expected to produce a digital blueprint that can enable the City to be able to better and smarter management and running of the City,” Vrijland said.
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Wits deputy vice-chancellor for research and innovation Professor Lynn Morris said Wits had seen it fit to partner with IBM to establish the IBM Research Laboratory at Tshimologong, which she said was one of 13 labs around the world, whose purpose was to churn out digital minds of the future.
“I trust this twinning hackathon programme will be able to produce the best out of young minds and also birth life-changing solutions faced by the City of Johannesburg and other world cities for that matter,” she said.
The best top three groups of the 30 students in total, who are paired in groups, stand to win educational support prizes, with the first prize being R40 000 worth of educational support and an opportunity for SA students to undertake an educational trip to the Netherlands while second-placed students get R35 000 worth of educational and the third-place students win R25 000, also in educational support.
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