University of Newcastle announces the best “hack” for water security

Monday, 18 October 2021

The New Futures Hackathon for Water Security saw seven teams learn from water security experts from Hunter Water, City of Newcastle, Hunter H2O, and the University of Newcastle before embarking on a 10 hour “hack” to evolve their ideas into a viable, technological solution.

Daniel Smith from team Everydrop demonstrates the prize-winning app
Daniel Smith from team Everydrop demonstrates the prize-winning app.

Everydrop - a mobile-based application that gamifies water consumption for households has been awarded the Best Tech Solution at the University of Newcastle’s New Futures Hackathon for Water Security.

The winning team – Daniel Smith, Gabriella Maughan, Liam Scanlan, and Thomas Courtney - comprised of multi-disciplinary University of Newcastle graduates in business and entrepreneurship, law, e-commerce, and software engineering, was awarded $3,000 and will each receive a three-month residency at the University’s I2N Hub Honeysuckle with specialist mentorship to continue development of their idea.

A family from Victoria, a University of Newcastle Ph.D. student, and a Hunter-based business analyst joined forces for their project Hydro Neutral which was awarded Best Runner-Up Tech Solution, receiving $2,000. Michael Milewski, Felix Milewski, Sarah Alexander, Igbayemi Daniel Akeremale, and Leonora Collett developed a widget that businesses can display on their website to communicate how their water use compares to the industry average as a demonstration of their commitment to corporate social responsibility.

Awarded the Rising Star Award, and receiving $500 was a team made up of members with little to no hackathon experience from Newcastle and Melbourne who had not met before the hackathon, for their innovative wastewater solution – Diversions.

An overview of the seven projects included in the New Futures Hackathon is available at: https://new-futures-hackathon-water.devpost.com/project-gallery.

You can catch up on the team pitches via this link.

Background

The New Futures Hackathon was a water security-focused creative problem-solving challenge aimed at developing solutions to efficient use and management of water and protecting water systems locally and throughout the world.

Organised by the University’s Integrated Innovation Network (I2N), the event aims to build enterprise skills among the community and was supported by the City of Newcastle and Hunter Water.

During the two day event on 15-16 October, held online, 29 participants formed seven teams and had the opportunity to learn from water security experts from Hunter Water, City of Newcastle, Hunter H2O, and the University of Newcastle before embarking on a 10-hour “hack” to evolve their ideas into a viable, technological solution.

Contact


Related news