Ericsson, UTM, Xpand organise 'Hack for Good'

• Total prizes of RM20,000 to be won at the final on April 11
• Winners get a chance to get onto Ericsson Garage's Incubation Programme

ERICSSON and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in a joint initiative with Axiata Business Services under the brand Xpand, have come together to announce an end-to-end cellular Internet of Things hackathon in Malaysia, called Hack for Good.

This hackathon aims to unleash the potential of IoT to accelerate Technology for Good and covers the complete ecosystem from device, connectivity, cloud platform and mobile applications.

The private-public initiative is well aligned with the government’s goal of promoting a robust IoT eco system in the country in line with its Digital Malaysia Vision.

The Hackathon seeks to find innovative IoT solutions in four broad themes: IoT Saves Lives, IoT Sustains Water, Energy and Utilities, IoT Transforms Road Transportation, IoT Modernises Agriculture.

The hackathon aims to attract new ideas and stimulate innovations in the target IoT verticals, while providing a unique opportunity to university students and professionals to build IoT-based solutions relevant for Malaysia.

According to Prof Dr. Wahid Omar, the Vice Chancellor of UTM, "UTM is embracing Internet of Things (IoT) technology in providing smart campus experience and achieving sustainability. Through this Hackathon, the Wireless Communication Centre and Centre of Information and Communication Technology UTM are working hand in hand with Ericsson and Axiata Business Services to develop our young local ICT talent in our industry.

“We are confident that this Hackathon will strengthen the technology incubation capabilities at UTM as part of the Innovation Centre for 5G partnership with Ericsson.”

Axiata Business Services chief executive officer Asri Hassan Sabri, says, “As a relatively new but key area of growth for us, the IoT sector holds great promise as a multi billion dollar addressable market within the Axiata footprint to reach businesses and consumers across multiple industries.

“Through this joint initiative with Ericsson and UTM, we aim to work with some of the best programming, computing and engineering minds in Malaysia to come up with specific use cases, applications and solutions that could bring a positive impact to society and possibly be adopted as marketable product solutions for businesses.

Ericsson Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh head Todd Ashton (pic, above) states, “Together with our long term partners UTM and Axiata, we see this Hackathon as a platform to encourage the best minds in the country to come forward to develop IoT solutions for the benefit of Malaysia. 

“We hope the hackathon will stimulate new ideas for healthcare, transport, energy, utilities and agriculture. We will also work with winners to onboard them to Ericsson Garage's Incubation Programme to turn winning ideas into businesses.”

The hackathon is open to University and tertiary education students from all private and public institutions in Malaysia as well as professional developers, programmers, designers, engineers and technopreneurs.

The programme kicks off with a call for ideas from Feb 6, wherein interested participants can register online in a team of three persons to submit a two-minute pitch video. The top 10 ideas will be shortlisted to participate in the hackathon.

A Pre-Hack Workshop will be carried out to prepare the participants with the necessary skills for the prototype development.

The participants will then have a month of hacking time to develop the prototype. During the hacking period, periodic progress meeting with industry mentors will be carried out.

After one month of hacking, the participants will present their prototypes at the Hackathon Final that will be held at Innovation Centre for 5G, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur on April 11, 2018.

Total prizes worth RM20,000 can be won with the winners also getting an opportunity to be onboarded to Ericsson Garage’s Incubation Program.

For more information about Hack for Good, including entering the hackathon, please visit www.t4gc.com