Urban IoT Hackathon

Calling all change makers!

Cities and regions globally are increasingly shifting towards innovation, bringing digitisation and the Internet of Things into all aspects of human and business life. In Newcastle the local innovation ecosystem is leveraging the city’s emerging smart city infrastructure for trialling and developing innovative solutions to address urban challenges that may not be possible to be explored in more complex and highly congested urban environments.

The Urban IoT Hackathon recognises these future urban challenges and invites cross-disciplinary teams from IT, Business, Design, Sociology, IoT, Engineering and Environment Science backgrounds to imagine IoT insertions, activations, integrations and solutions which benefit citizens, business, community and Government.

Teams will need to focus on one of our #SoNewy Challenge Topics and how it might interact in our NewyDex initiative:

1. Vibrant City: People don’t always know what’s on or where to go to make best use of the city - How can IoT help people assess the mood and pulse of the city to help them make decisions about what to do and where to go?

2. LuminoCity: Parts of the city are poorly lit, considered risky and are therefore underutilised, with a corresponding impact on night time economy and cultural life. How can IoT activations help bring more people into the city at night to help make it safer?

3. Circular City: The amounts of energy and effort that go into production are wasted in a throw away society. How can IoT help the war on waste and improve re-use of resources, or deliver greater efficiencies in their use?

4. Open Challenge: Got an activation in mind that fits in a different box? We've also set up a catch-all category for those who choose a different path, or march to the beat of a different drum.

The event is open to teams of three to five individuals. As it is an open Hackathon, anyone can participate whatever their skill level and experience. Participants will be tasked with creating an integrated IoT solution to their chosen challenge, which will consider not only the technology, systems and engineering aspects of their solution but also the potential risk and security issues, and the business benefits. Teams will present their final projects in front of a panel of judges for a chance to win prize money and an opportunity to join a skilled group of residents at Eighteen04 to grow their ideas.

More information on criteria, judges and available datasets can be found here and here

This hackathon is part of a collaborative startup engagement project between the City of Newcastle and Eighteen04. This project received grant funding from the Australian Government under its Smart Cities and Suburbs program.  

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You may be photographed or videod while attending this event: please approach the organiser if you have questions, concerns, or do not wish this to happen.

The event organisers may add you to a mailing list so they can follow up, and you can receive updates about their activities: this mailing list will have an easy-to-find unsubscribe button.

This event is part of Spark Festival and upholds the Spark Code of Conduct.