Te Piha Niha of NGEN Room is leading a taiao (environment) hackathon with the support of the Northland Regional Council and Climate Action Tai Tokerau. The hackathon will bring together people with diverse skills and backgrounds to generate solutions to address environmental issues. This might include environmentalists, developers, creatives, hapū, entrepreneurs, business, local government, or perhaps you!
So what is a hackathon?
A hackathon is an event where people come together to work intensively on a project. They brainstorm, develop, and create solutions within a short time frame, like a day or a weekend. Hackathons encourage creativity, collaboration, and quick problem-solving. Participants showcase their projects at the end, and prizes may be awarded for the best ideas. It’s a fun and fast-paced way for individuals with different skills to collaborate and innovate.
Here are a couple of videos for insights into how hackathons work.
Te Piha believes we have all the capabilities to build dynamic world-class solutions within Te Tai Tokerau. We currently work in our separate areas without a lot of communication or even knowing each other’s industries. His hope is for this at least:
- to further awareness around the taiao and current needs
- to further connect different industries, kaupapa, and connections
- to develop world-class solutions for small to large problems in the local taiao
- a space/place to experiment, throw ideas around, and to have fun.
We are in the early stages of planning but are looking to mid to late Winter. If you would like to be part of our hackathon please leave a comment below.
Good idea Peter!
it seems to be an advanced version of the usual discussion methods with small table groups that report to the big group at the end, but this seems to be more focussed with the end result easier to convert into action since it is based on digitalised methods?
From our perspective the most pressing taiko problem in Northland is water cleaning. Methods to do this are probbly less of a problem than council rules and financing, but also policing of polluters. Public awareness and resulting personal responsibility feeling need to be strengthened.
If this BIG problem could be solved it would be a major WIN! Cheers, Inge & Rolf
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let’s do.it, write ideas and PUT them.into PRACTICE
I would be keen to participate
Hi
I am a member of the EcoNet.NZ charitable trust which is building and rolling out CAMS (Conservation Activity Managment System) – we are a finalist in the MPI Biosecurity Innovation Awards in April.
You can read more about our systems at econet.nz
One of our members has drawn our attention to your hackathon and I am touching base to see if there might be any beneffits in talking further.
One of our best innovations has been an open source integration tool written by a Wellington volunteer that synchs data from iNaturalist to the CAMS Weeds eTool map.
A Wellington hackathon led to an idea to develop an early warning system about the spread of highly invasive weeds in other regions.
We are also talking about hosting fresh water volunteers and reports.
CAMS combines CRM and GIS tools and we have started integrating data using web hooks.
Our GIS platform is ArcGIS Premium Hub which allows us to bring new members into a shared GIS environment for volunteers across a wide range of conservation activities. It provides named usercodes for people to access layers of data around their local area. One can envisage that this will provide an integrated platform for understanding how one aspect of the natural world impacts on another.
The CAMS Weeds eTool has been largely developed by volunteers with assistance from pro bono experts.
There is scope for new tools to be developed and then the data shared to users across the regions via the ArcGIS hub.
We are also planning automated communications with stakeholders and householders using CRM to follow up key issues.
If you’d like to explore ideas, please contact me at systems@econet.nz
Thanks Keith