C5 challenge students to tackle marine pollution

Monday 16 April 2018

Four C5 Alliance bursary students and a Discover Digital Internship student will be working on a digital solution to help tackle marine plastic pollution this summer.

Technology experts from the firm will assist the students in creating a viable product that will collect information on litter washed up around the island’s coastline over the course of six weeks this summer.

The idea for the app was developed during a full day workshop at the Digital Greenhouse. The issue of plastic pollution was one of three problem statements - the other two being road safety incidents and accessibility to arts and culture - three groups of C5 developers and analysts, headed up by bursary students, had to work on.

After brainstorming ideas and solutions, the teams had to pitch their best idea on one of the statements to a panel of expert judges which included Jon Buckland, chief secretary for the Committee for the Environment & Infrastructure; David Ummels, banker, investor and entrepreneur and Phil Ruelle, chief digital officer at BDO Jersey. Each team had 10 minutes to convince the panel how their viable idea would be beneficial to the community.

Dan Wainwright, a C5 bursary student currently studying Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of Manchester, headed up one of the teams. His team pitched ‘Track Trash,’ an app that turns the collection and data recording of litter into a game, providing people with an incentive to clean up the island’s beaches. 

He said: “To be given a problem statement and come up with an idea and a reasonable budget in half a day is a challenge in itself – to try and innovate that quickly and come up with something tangible that we can promote is not easy."

The C5 project aims to allow students to develop their digital problem solving skills while getting a real sense of what working in the industry is like.

Matthew Skillett, Business Analyst at C5 said: “It’s great to give students a specific project they can really get their teeth into, especially if it will generate benefits for the local community.

“The workshop also offered students an insight into the skillset that we would use day-to-day as business analysts - looking at the requirements of a problem, coming up with solutions and implementing them but in a light-hearted environment and working on interesting concepts, with a community benefit rather than just a business benefit.”

Jon Buckland, Chief secretary for the Committee for the Environment & Infrastructure, said: “The day was a superb example of the public and private sector coming together to address issues that affect the community and leveraging the expertise and enthusiasm needed to find solutions to real world problems. The delivery of the presentations earlier in the day and seeing how the teams were working together was really encouraging.”