Moreton Bay Region Received National Recognition at this Year’s GovHack

In partnership with UniSC and Moreton Bay Regional Council, Innovate Moreton Bay supported local teams in their GovHack 2022 efforts. Many of these teams went on to win awards and stand above other teams from across the nation.

Winning Teams and Projects (National)

Winners:

In the “Flood, fire and the future: the road to resilience” challenge Moreton Bay team ‘Evil’ won 1^st place with their solution. Titled ‘Flood Freight Assist’, a tool built to provide freight carriers with information on routes that are blocked, or may become blocked, due to flooding.

Then, team ‘Hot Water Tea’ won 1^st place in the “What’s going where (National Freight Data Hub)” challenge with their project. Their submission, named ‘Once a flood, probably twice a flood…’, acted as an interactive infographic that displays predicted flood areas in and around Ipswich. Data that can benefit industries like manufacturing, freight, and logistics.

Honourable Mentions:

Also, in the “Flood, fire and the future: the road to resilience” challenge, local team EvaQ was the honourable mention. ‘By A Fine Drop’, the solution they delivered, is an app that enables its users to arrive at their destinations safely and efficiently during natural disasters. It can be used to locate and reach loved ones, points for evacuation, or any other location required – all using publicly available data and live updates that track floods and fires to provide a safe route.

The honourable mention for “The 2021 Australian Census” challenge went to Moreton Bay team HACKSAW. Their submission, ‘CRIME (Crime Resource Interface Management Engine)’ works to synthesise QPS offences data throughout QLD Local Government Areas and Australian Census data to highlight hotspots for crime and emerging trends. All this helps to make for an easier allocation of QPS resources, show the performance of law enforcement in these regions, and insight into which LGAs may benefit from greater public education.

The “Reducing climate impact through sustainable energy behaviours” challenge saw local team ‘TransCO2’ deliver a solution by the same name. TransC02 allows commuters and Transport Network Planners to optimise routes based on sustainable energy behaviours. This app is doing its part to work toward the net zero emission target for 2050.

Winning Teams and Projects (Queensland)

Winners:

The “Moreton Bay Greening As We Grow” challenge saw local team ‘Koala Hackers’ bring home 1^st place with their submission ‘ARMRA’. ARMRA (Animal Recognition, Monitoring and Rescue Application) is a mobile app that utilises machine learning, geospatial data, and data sets related to animal population, bushfires, floods, and more to create a community-based approach to caring for our nation’s unique and diverse wildlife.

The Queensland Government’s challenge, titled simply ‘Environment’, saw the WaterSaver project, by Moreton Bay team ‘The Company’, bring home first place. The WaterSaver app allows users to track water consumption in real time and gamifies water conscientiousness using a rewards and ranking system.

Runner Ups:

Moreton Bay teams were the runners up in three state categories:

• Council challenge: Moreton Bay greening as we grow
• Unitywater challenge: Digitising your drinking water
• Queensland Government challenge: Environment

The Green Team submitted their self-titled Green Team app and were the runner up in both ‘Moreton Bay greening as we grow’ and ‘Environment’. They were able to deliver a prototype that connected users to clear visualisations of conservation data, better allowing them to contribute to conservation efforts, with future plans to enable users with the information they need to assist these efforts from their own home.

The WaterSaver app by The Company not only won a category, but also brought home the Runner Up position in the ‘Digitising your drinking water category’.

Other Recognition:

Recognised at the National Level, Moreton Bay Regional Council was the recipient with the ‘Best Government Participation – Local Council’ award. Recognition the region could not have received without the hard work and outcomes of locals that participated. Our council unlocked nearly 300 datasets for use in the lead-up to this event, and saw eleven council staff members volunteer their time for the sake of competition.

Also nationally recognised, The Green Team’s solution was recognised by participants and popular vote and saw itself deemed an honourable mention for the People’s Choice Award.

View all the winners here: https://govhack.org/2022-winne...

Why Events Like GovHack Matter

Beyond providing opportunities for networking, portfolio building, and the development of new skills, GovHack also highlights the power making data publicly available. Real problems and challenges being faces by local and national communities are addressed, and teams have a short period of time to use open source data resourcefully to offer solutions.

It’s no wonder so many local teams got involved, and why their involvement has seen so much support from the Moreton Bay Regional Council.

Moreton Bay Regional Council Mayor Peter Flannery said GovHack provided an opportunity to develop and support entrepreneurial capabilities for the region’s young innovators to generate real-world solutions for both local and national issues affecting communities. (Read council's coverage of this event here.)

“Knowledge, innovation, and entrepreneurship is one of the four pillars of our Regional Economic Development Strategy. Our aim is to make our region one of the top 10 regional knowledge and innovation hubs in Australia – a goal we can achieve by focusing on growing our region’s talent,” Mayor Flannery said.

“We were especially proud to win the Best Government Participation award for Moreton Bay Regional Council as our staff unlocked over 290 data sets in preparation for the event and then eleven of our staff volunteered over the entire weekend to support the UniSC students.”

To learn more about other events like this, click here: https://www.innovatemoretonbay...