CORNWALL, Ontario – The Ontario Power Generation (OPG) Visitor Centre hosted Cornwall’s latest hackathon on Saturday, Nov. 25
Hack to the Future was organized by Code Heroes, the Social Development Council, and the City of Cornwall.
The event saw six different teams face off to solve civic problems in the City of Cornwall.
Judges included Cornwall City Councillor Bernadette Clement, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Maureen Adams, Mayor Leslie O’Shaughnessy and the Trendy Techie, Sage Franch.
Franch was the keynote speaker at the hackathon.
“I see a lot of people who have big questions about the future of tech here in Cornwall,” said Franch. “I think Cornwall has a unique perspective. With technology always available innovation is now possible anywhere.”
At the event, she spoke to the gathered audience about the Five Key Pillars of Emerging Tech, namely, the cloud, artificial intelligence, block chains, quantum and mixed reality.
Some of the entrants in the hackathon on Saturday included ideas to solve problems around local transportation, shopping carts and tourism.
The first place winners Shivam Bhatt, Gabriel Valin and Ethan Kennedy created an app with the express purpose of tackling all of the challenges facing Cornwall. They called their idea Exousia which would be an app that invited youth to crowd source ideas to solve problems and rewarding good behaviour through a positive karma system as a way to combat trolls.
Bhatt, one of the spokesmen for the three man group defined youth as anyone with a young way of thinking.
Second place winners were Benjamin Woods-Chisholm and Ziad Ewais for their app which was designed to promote tourism through a gamified system. Third place, created by Rob Priddle, who described his idea as a dating app for gardeners. His app is designed to connect food growers, consumers and just regular folks interested in gardening.
The first place winner was awarded $1, 000, second place got $300 and third $200.
“I am really excited and pleased to see that this is centred around civic activity,” said CAO Maureen Adams. “It is also great to see youth engagement with the community. It is very encouraging.”
