If you’re new to the term “hackathon”, you may think it’s an event where programmers and engineers gather to frantically code as fast as they can and produce some sort of software or application at the end of it.
But there’s more to it. A hackathon is an event where participants collaborate on a project over a short period of time, often with the end-goal of producing an innovative, tangible product that forms a solution to a real-world problem.
On 11 and 12 July, we sent two teams of 3 developers to one of Accenture Digital’s annual global hackathon, the DSD-MEE Low-Code Global Connected Hackathon. The challenge was to use low-code platforms, including ACNAPI, to create a minimum viable product (MVP) in any of these business areas: Smart Home and Smart City, Industrial Environment, and Resources and Energy.
This hackathon was a great opportunity for us to realise the potential that ACNAPI had in a pressured environment. As our participants worked hard to create the next Big Idea, we saw ACNAPI come to life, to bring forth their innovation visions at both speed and scale.
Here are three takeaways from those adrenaline-filled 24 hours:
1. Co-innovation
The hackathon was all about co-innovation across diverse groups of people. Our two Catalyst teams from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur each joined minds and hands with teams from Bangalore and Mumbai respectively. The cultural diversity within the teams opened doors to more creative ideas, and opened eyes to issues that either side might have been oblivious to. For example, certain issues like traffic congestion presently form a whole different picture in India and China, as compared to cities like Singapore.
The teams viewed the hackathon challenge like any other client’s project. Only this time, they’d have to produce a solid MVP at the end of 24 hours instead of several months, meaning that no time could be wasted and they’d have to be confident of every step of their plan. And of course, working around the time difference meant little sleep for our participants too!
2. Design Thinking
Following human-centric design thinking, the teams’ ideas were conceived from real-world problems they observed around them.
Firstly, the Singapore-Bangalore team took on a common challenge that their clients face — pipe corrosion. One favourable aspect about this problem was that it wasn’t pigeonholed to any industry, so the team felt that this would increase the solution’s traction and viability as it could better cater to the diverse clientele that Accenture has.
The team saw that pipe corrosion was a problem that currently affects multiple roles across industrial environments:
- Engineers — Chemical leakages from corroded pipes pose a real danger to their health, sometimes even causing death
- CEOs — Maintenance costs for the pipes can rocket scarily high (corrosion eats up to USD552 billion a year in America, in the form of infrastructure)
- Data analysts— Only limited to data from the lab, their ability to help alleviate these problems using big data is restricted
Combining ACNAPI services with sensor systems and robotics, the team created a ‘Smart Inspector’ mobile app MVP that would detect pipe damage in the system, and information of the damage would be fed to engineers on the app. This information includes types of damage (leakage, damaged coating, joint failures and corrosion), status of maintenance and repairs, and areas which need attention.
Now moving on to the Mumbai-Kuala Lumpur team; the team decided to tackle the problem of traffic congestion, as they saw that motorists around them were spending huge amounts of time looking for parking. On a daily average, this amounts to 45 minutes in Hanoi, 31 in Ho Chi Minh City and 25 in Kuala Lumpur. Around the globe, it has caused unnecessary economic loss — the United States lost USD87 billion in 2018, not including atmospheric damage caused by car exhaust gases.
The team built a ‘Sparks’ mobile app MVP that was integrated with AI. The app was made to be a parking platform that would provide real-time updates to motorists on available parking spots in their vicinity. To provide for the needs of various demographics, users could indicate their parking preferences, such as handicapped parking lots, lots for senior citizens, Park & Ride, and more.
The primary aim of the app was to provide optimised parking solutions for motorists, which would help to reduce traffic congestion. This opened more doors to potentially addressing other secondary issues as well, such as air pollution levels and safety on the roads.
3. Piecing parts together with ACNAPI
“ACNAPI was vital in the delivery of the end product for the hackathon. With only 24 hours to deliver coupled with the complexity of our idea, we really needed an extra hand. Hence ACNAPI became the 7th member of the team — a highly efficient DevOps engineer,” said Ng Yan Bo from the Singapore team.
We saw how ACNAPI empowered the team to innovate across the continent.
Firstly, instead of manually conveying specifications of a deployment over a Skype call, which depended on the availability and attentiveness of the parties involved, developers in the team could simply login to the console, then have the freedom to dive into the nitty gritty details of the deployment. This could all be done with just one click on the ACNAPI platform.
Secondly, ACNAPI provided a “golden ticket” in the form of a template that enabled the developers to cut straight to the chase, instead of spending time to manually set up the code base for the project. This was helpful for both frontend and backend developers, as three app services were already available on ACNAPI for deployment — frontend, backend and API templates. Hence the platform was flexible in providing the necessary environments required, fostering collaboration among different types of developers on the same platform.
Lastly, developers did not have to worry about setting up their CI/CD pipeline. ACNAPI greatly sped up their development by simplifying the process (only a git push was required), and the codes would be deployed to the target of choice. The developers could then see the changes on the actual environment in real-time.
The result after 24 hours of “hacking”? Our teams won Runner-up and Fourth places respectively, out of a total of six teams. Congratulations to them, and a big thank you for the hard work!
From this hackathon, ACNAPI shone through to us as a valuable accelerator platform that helped the teams eliminate several hurdles and fast-forward certain procedures. Enabling the participants to innovate at speed and scale was paramount to the teams’ success, and we hope that this post has given you a glimpse into ACNAPI as a viable, low-code tool.
Thank you for your support!
The participants, Hansel, Jun De, Yan Bo, Danial, Jacky, and Shane would like to thank the team for their support and encouragement throughout this hackathon.
Also, special thanks to Laverne and TJ for all their help and supervision; from their guidance throughout the hackathon, to staying overnight with the team, and to providing welfare in the form of meals and snacks.
