Ireland's first IBM Watson IoT hackathon in conjunction with Cisco, ITAG Skillnet and supported by VT Networks, Nexiona and our media partner The Galway Advertiser, took place at the PorterShed last weekend.
Over 48 hours, 60 international participants designed and prototyped an Internet of Things (IoT ) solution to a business or social challenge. World class industry experts gave hands-on guidance to the teams, through every step of the process.
Data scientists, hardware enthusiasts, software developers, and entrepreneurs from all over the globe took part in the event. Each team was assigned a user experience designer to help them develop their initial concept. The groups went on to develop prototypes with the help of experts in IBM Watson IoT and Cisco Spark and Edge technologies.
Pitching coaches helped the participants to distil their achievements into a four minute presentation for a panel of industry and business experts. The themes of the competition entrants included tackling social isolation among the elderly, improving hospital bed allocation, and improving efficiency in oil distribution. Prizes were presented in the categories of "Best Citizen Scientist IoT Project" and "Best Overall IoT Project".
This was the first Hackathon collaboration between IBM and Cisco in Galway. The companies brought in technical experts from the US and UK, as well as supplying home grown talent from their Galway labs. To add it the festivals success #porterhack trended number one in Ireland over the weekend?
The event has been such as success that talks are already under way for future projects. We are looking forward to it’s continued success year on year. For more information on AtlanTec Festival visit www.itag.ie
