op row (l-r) – Matthew Warren and Adam Curtis (Tech Hub Swansea), Chris Parsons, Damon Jones, Ellis James, Prof Chris Price (Aberystwyth Uni), Robert Fletcher, Dr Matt Roach (SAW), Sir Terry Matthews.
Bottom row (l-r) – Justina Onuigbo, James Alfei, Gwion Davies, Rodrigo Rogers
Swansea University computer science students have been named winners of Software Alliance Wales’ live Hackathon held at Digital 2014, at the Celtic Manor Resort, Newport on the 9th and 10th June.
Each team gave a 2-minute pitch to their peers, conference delegates and a panel of judges that included serial high tech entrepreneur, Sir Terry Matthews, Simon Gibson of Alacrity and Wesley Clover, Adam Curtis and Matt Warren of TechHub Swansea and Software Alliance Wales’ Dr Matthew Roach and Professor Chris Price of Aberystwyth University.
The ‘live’ Hackathon took place throughout the two-days of the event and brought together students, academics, software developers and technology entrepreneurs. Their challenge was to use the state-of-the-art beacon technology to create commercially viable and innovative apps.
The winning app, Eye-Range for golfers, was developed by a team of eight soon-to-be-graduates – James Alfei, Chris Parsons, Rodrigo Rogers, Robert Fletcher, Justina Onuigbo, Ellis James, Damon Jones, and Gwion Davies.
The smartphone app would use a network of ‘beacons’ – placed on each hole of the golf course – to allow amateur, professional and celebrity golfers to benchmark their performance against that of other golfers who had previously played a round of golf, in similar weather conditions, on that course.
The app would be given free to both golf club members and visitors to encourage golfers to return to the golf course on a regular basis to improve on their personal best. The app would also allow the golf club to cross promote other activities such as alert the players to the dates of the next golfing tournament, clothing or memorabilia available from the Clubhouse or the nearest place to grab a coffee.
The competing teams included students from Aberystwyth University, Bangor University, University of Wales Trinity Saint David and University of South Wales. Working with Ordnance Survey, bis-zone and other software developers and tech entrepreneurs, their concepts centred on an app to navigate the London Underground and find places of interest enroute and an app for visitors to National Trust properties, arboretums and gardens.
All applications were judged on technical capability, innovative use of technology, commercial potential and implementation progress.
