City announces winners of Hackathon 2015

Calgary, AB - After three days of intense brainstorming, programming and pitching, three teams have come out on top at The City of Calgary Hackathon.

Beginning Friday, April 24 through until Sunday, April 26 fourteen teams used their expertise in programming, business modeling and research to create technology-based solutions to make the lives of Calgarians better.  The groups then pitched their ideas to the panel of judges for the chance to win $1500 for first place, $1000 for second place, and $500 for third place. The following teams were crowned this year’s Hackathon winners:

1. Calgary Alerts: A notification website and app that will alert users of City events, traffic and transit updates, voting reminders, emergency alerts, and parking restrictions based on their interests and location.
   Team members: Anthony Lukach, Edward Keeble, Lewis Sobotiewicz, Peter McCaffrey, Jeromy Farkas, and Justin Bumstead
    
2. My Lamp Post (available at myLampPost.ca): A website that helps Calgarians be connected and informed on the events happening in their community.
   Team members: Guy Obrecht, Scott Blenkhorne, Ardalan Naghshineh, Matthew Koepp, Brian Halsey, and Nathan Lau
    
3. Open Data Analytics (available at performancedataanalytics.com): A website that provides open spatial data to inform important public policy decisions.
   Team members: Jeremie Blais and Barend Dronkers

“It has been an incredible weekend with amazing amounts of talent and creativity shown by all participants,” said Walter Simbirski, Open Data Strategist with The City of Calgary.  “The goal of this hackathon was to engage citizens and provide incentives to use The City’s Open Data for solving problems at the grass-root level.  I think we have definitely achieved that!”

The Hackathon was an opportunity to promote the use of open data, and encourage citizens to create innovative solutions to deliver City services in a more efficient and effective manner.  Open data refers to data that is available to the public at no cost, and can be used for any purpose including commercial use.

“This is about facilitating conversations, supporting the tech community and encouraging people to think collaboratively,” said Simbirski. “Our hope is that the participants have had a chance to network during this event and potentially leverage those relationships to further develop their ideas and concepts so they can be implemented”.

For more information on The City of Calgary’s Open Data Catalogue, visit data.calgary.ca.

Photos are available for download.

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