A short course designed to tackle the issue of managing and presenting data in the ever-growing digital universe was the winning idea at this year’s Curtin University Marketing Hackathon.
This year’s Hackathon focused on developing new courses to equip students with the skills and capabilities required for the jobs, careers and industries of the future.
The Hackathon teams were made up of University staff, Curtin students, alumni and external agency partners, with participants tasked with using start-up business model techniques to rapidly generate ideas, and develop a course pitch.
Curtin’s Chief Marketing Officer Ty Hayes said it was critical for universities to use techniques such as Hackathons to be able to tap into the ideas that exist within their broad networks and be able to test new ideas in a rapid, fail-fast manner.
“Today’s higher education market is fast-paced, hyper-competitive and as a leading education provider we need to help students prepare for the jobs and industries of tomorrow,” Mr Hayes said.
“Each year the Hackathon provides a great opportunity for staff, students, alumni and industry to collaborate and generate innovative ideas.”
The winning idea stemmed from the proposition that by 2020, the digital universe may be more than 40 zettabytes in size, and most professionals will need to have the required skills to analyse the data and present it in meaningful ways to enable decision-making.
The runner-up team, Game Development Hub, created an idea for a central hub that encouraged collaboration on both traditional game development and gamification concepts that could be used in education, health, resources and other sectors.
Pitch-panel judges included the Head of Digital Strategy at BHP Billiton, Coert Du Plesssi; award-winning innovation and game designer, Dr Kate Raynes-Goldie; social media strategist and Blogger at Just Love, Kate Dart; Curtin University’s Academic Registrar Associate Professor Jon Yorke; and Andy Lamb from Innovation Studios.
Previous ideas from Curtin’s Hackathon includes the Curtin People Under Pressure at School (PUPS) project, which has since been rolled out, and the University has partnered with the not-for-profit organisation SAFE Perth to bring puppies to Perth high schools as a way to help relieve stress and pressure during exam periods.
