Digital Jersey Celebrates Success of Third Hackathon

Thursday 08 October 2015

Digital Jersey supported local digital innovation at the third successful HackJsy Hackathon by offering use of the Hub for the event, which took place between 25th – 27th September.

The 36-hour event was the first Hackathon to focus on digital health. Participants included designers, developers and digital experts and enthusiasts, who formed teams to create innovative digital health solutions, with the aim of winning the grand first prize of £1000.

Eight teams competed in the event, with some even working overnight in the Hub to make sure they completed their product on time. The winning teams included:

• 1^st prize – It’s a Gamble! - Beancon

An app that can be used to alert emergency service and provide location data from a mobile phone to assist in locating people during distress call 

• 2^nd prize – Paul Dutot - Health Stage

A hardware environment that facilitates monitoring of environmental factors including air quality and could also be extended to monitor an individual’s health, or for use in medical observatio 

• 3^rd prize – The Cowboy Coders - MyGP

The Cowboy Coders consisted of three students from the Digital Jersey Coding Programme. Their MyGP product was designed to communicate test results and other information between GPs and their patients

• Commendation: WTH (What The Health?!) prize – Unfit Tweeters - TweetFit

Unfit Tweeters were a junior team, winning the WTH prize for the best ‘out of the box’ effort. TweetFit is an app that motivates people to get fit using Twitter

Digital Jersey plan to meet with the eight teams in the coming months, with the aim of helping to support the local innovations further.  Following the success of this year’s event, HackJsy have confirmed that they will hold the next Hackathon in March 2016.

Tony Moretta, CEO of Digital Jersey, said: “I’d like to congratulate every single person that took part in this year’s Digital Health Hackathon. It’s fantastic that there was such a great turn out of digital enthusiasts creating innovative products in digital health, a field that is so prevalent at the moment. At Digital Jersey, we know that digital health is an area where we are seeing a lot of emerging local talent and there is plenty of potential to continue to build on this area to benefit the Island. I am looking forward to working with the winning teams and showcasing their products to the health minister in the near future.”

Matt Chatterley, speaking on behalf of the organisers of HackJsy Hackathon, said: “I’m thrilled that we are now on our third Hackathon! I’m even more excited by the amazing projects the teams have been able to put together in under 40 hours. If anyone is looking for evidence that there is immense for potential for innovation here in Jersey, I certainly don’t feel they will have to look very far! I’m looking forward to seeing how the teams are able to take their products forward in the coming months and I hope they will all come back for the next event in March. Thanks are due to our sponsors; without whom we wouldn’t be able to hold these weekends in the first place.”