Oh My GoSH Hackathon Saturday 2024

I think the winners a few weekends ago were the oldies, the volunteers, the sponsors, and the judges who attended this day. Why you ask? because we got to learn from the young people in our regions. I loved the Saturday hackathon turning ideation into solutions with our young people in the Peel Region. I loved our young people's energy, passion, and focus—an inspiration.

The Peel GoSHackathon saw 20 primary and 14 secondary school teams take on one of three global challenges from a regional lens in Peel. All solutions were based on sustainable development goals, and all involved innovative application of technology. It was all based at the same location this year which was great. The young people shared what each other was doing in primary and secondary schools. I could not believe the difference in the noise levels between primary and secondary school levels.

The themes that we had included:

·       Fast Fashion SDGs 9, 10, 12, and 13 - Let’s Break the Fast Fashion Chain.  FOMO + less access to shops in the regions + regional landfill getting shipped around the word! – One of the ideas was to create a robot that ate your old clothes and then turned them into new clothes. You could then create new clothes at the touch of a button.

·       Rising Tides SDG 11 11,13 and 14 – Let’s protect our shores, one wave of change at a time. In 100 years, the Mandurah Foreshore, Forest Hwy, & many other areas are predicted to be underwater – I loved the Mangroves idea. I loved how the teams used data to understand the problem and support their ideas.

·       Skool Sux SDGs 3, 4, 10, 11, and 16 – School should be accessible for everyone. As more regional families are living below the poverty line, they also have limited access to support for mental health services, multiple factors impact students' access (or ability) to go to school.  – One of the ideas was to create a Farm school with different values and encourage children to plant their food and look after animals. One of the teams created a Minecraft model of the farm, I was so impressed. I went to a school that had a farm. I certainly think this is an amazing idea.

There was a good mix of private and government run schools. This is an enormous outcome as our mission is to bring these opportunities to all young people on a level playing field and these results speak for themselves City of Mandurah 👏👏 Supporting the Sustainability Development Goals of 4 Quality Education, 5 Gender Equality, and 10 Reduced Inequalities. Thanks to our amazing partner Fogarty Foundation and sponsors City of Mandurah Alcoa Lotterywest Meshpoints Spacecubed Peel Development Commission Rio Tinto Bendigo Bank Creative Tech Village Student Edge Bloom Curtin University WA Data Science Innovation Hub (WADSIH) Jacaranda Hill Farm

Plus a big, huge thank you to all the amazing participants who had so much fun on the day.

And finally, to the volunteers without them helping it would not run as smoothly as it did.

#Ideation

#Innovation

#Data

#AI

#QuantumComputing