MPA picks winner of Smart Port Hackathon

SINGAPORE - The top winner of Smart Port Hackathon 2014 organised by Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA)walked away with $5,000 cash prize and a Galaxy Tab 3 (7.0) for each team member on Sunday.

Two runner-up prizes worth $3,000 and $2,000 were also given out.

In total, the hackathon saw 120 participants from 25 teams producing 25 original maritime-related prototypes in 48 hours.

Jointly organised with the Urban Prototypying (UP) Singapore community, held over a three day period from July 18 to 20, was held to encourage maritime professionals, data scientists, developers, designers and passionate citizens with diverse skills, to develop innovative solutions to enhance productivity, efficiency and sustainability in the Port of Singapore.

There were 20 different datasets with 32 million data points from MPA and its supporting partners such as PSA Corporation Limited, Jurong Port, YCH Group, DHI, Orbcomm and the National Environment Agency. These include datasets covering vessel movement and position data, ship registries, cargo information, berthing schedules, container trucking data, bunkering transactions, hydrographic maps, air quality, tidal and weather information.

MPA has for the first time, unlocked never been released data representing different sectors of the maritime industry.

Hackathon participants delved into and examined three main sets of challenges faced by the maritime industry today: productivity, efficiency and sustainability. Participants made used of these datasets to make sense of the port activities and to create innovative technology-enabled, data-driven solutions.

Mr Andrew Tan, Chief Executive, MPA said: "Through such hackathons, we hope to encourage greater collaboration and data sharing between our port operators, logistics players and industry solution providers to develop innovative ideas and co-solutions that can benefit the maritime sector. It is also a good platform to brainstorm new ways of doing things."

ljessica@sph.com.sg