The top three teams were all from our University! Winning the competition was a team called “404 Not Found” - made up of students Jessica Schoeman, Claudio Dos Santos and Keenan Ingram. Their business idea was centred around a grocery delivery application. The ease of use and how far they came with their development overnight, is what impressed the judges. The team walked away with a R3000 cash prize and each member received a R200 Uber eats voucher.
Taking second place was “Creative Connect” consisting of Tavonga Gune and Thato Mokhesuoe who created a platform that would allow artists to share new or special content directly with their fans. Their platform, “Extendo” bagged them a R2500 cash prize.
Third place went to Sanele Thwala, Daniel Basiwe and Athenkosi Sajini who developed a system to assist employers identify employees who need psychological assistance through Artificial Intelligence and encourage employers to work on increasing employee productivity through employee satisfaction. This team was featured earlier on our news page, see: https://news.mandela.ac.za/News/Students-excel-in-annual-hackathon-R2bP
The hackathon attracted over 30 participants from around the country from as far afield as Pretoria, Brits and Ugie.
The 18 teams had varied skills - from junior software developers, to having no coding experience at all. Participants were given “tech hacks” and allowed to make use of free online application and website builders, to allow them to them to achieve as close to a product or technology that a potential customer or client would want to buy.
The purpose of this event was to give participants a reason and deadline to work on a tech idea they had been considering.
The virtual event was a first for many of its participants which came with challenges such as, connectivity issues and power outages. This however did not dissuade any of the participants who stuck through until the very end of the 20-hour event.