Team Pika Wins Hawai‘i Annual Code Challenge

Team Pika won the top prize at this year’s Hawai‘i Annual Code Challenge (HACC). Team Pika presented a solution for how to track the energy consumption by the University of Hawai‘i, one of the state’s largest energy consumers. The challenge was posed by the Office of Energy Management for the University of Hawai‘i.

Team Pika. Courtesy photo.

Award winners:

• 1^st Place Open Division – Team Pika – UH Energy Consumption
• 2^nd Place Open Division – Gucci Gang – Plant Identification App
• 3^rd Place Open Division – Plant Hawai‘i – Plant Identification App
• 1^st Place High School – Mililani High School – UH Energy Consumption
• 2^nd Place High School – BuffnBlue – Dept. of Education Collaborative Network for Teachers
• AGathon Winner – Mahi Spray – Dept. of Agriculture Food Safety and Pesticide Tracking

HACC is open to everyone from students to amateurs to professionals. Participants gather to find innovative ways to create a more effective, efficient and open government with solutions to challenges put forth by various State departments.

“The outstanding talent of our local tech community was on full display during this year’s competition,” said Gov. David Ige. “Congratulations to the winners and mahalo to all who developed creative solutions to the state’s challenges.”

Judges for the competition included Gov. Ige; Rep. Jarrett Keohokalole; CIO Todd Nacapuy; Miller Abel, Principal Technologist, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Scott Enright, Chair, Department of Agriculture; Christine Sakuda, Executive Director, Transform Hawai‘i Government; and Donna Scannell, Vice President of IT Operations, Kaiser Permanent.

This year’s HACC took place over three weeks, from Oct. 27 to Nov. 10. Challenges from multiple state departments focused on sustainability goals demonstrated in the Aloha+ Challenge Dashboard, focusing on social, economic and environmental factors.

This year, the AGathon, a hackathon focused agriculture developed by the Hawai‘i Department of Agriculture and Hawai‘i Technology Development Corporation (HTDC), joined forces with HACC as the AGathon aligns with the Aloha+ Challenge dashboard’s Food Production and Consumption goals.

“HTDC and the AGathon community are committed to solving our agricultural sustainability issues, said Robbie Melton, HTDC executive director and CEO. “We were delighted to see the enthusiasm of the technology community as they come together to solve the challenges.”

HACC is a hackathon-inspired competition designed to engage the community in modernizing state functions and services and support IT workforce development. Conceived by Gov. Ige, the event is coordinated by the Office of Enterprise Technology Services in partnership with Hawai’i Pacific University and HTDC.

“Preparing students for the innovation economy means we must take an innovative approach to education,” said HPU President John Gotanda. “Partnering with the HACC gives our students hands-on experience and opportunities to engage with professionals in our community. We’re helping our state advance through IT workforce development.”

The HACC breaks the mold of a traditional hackathon, which typically takes place over a single day or weekend. Instead, the HACC provides an expanded multi-week timeframe meant to encourage interaction between community teams and state department personnel, resulting in sustainable solutions.

Sponsors of the event include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Hawai‘i Department of Agriculture, Kaiser Permanente, Transform Hawai‘i Government, DataHouse, Pacxa, Salesforce | Carahsoft, and Unisys. Community partners included DevLeague, Hawai‘i Green Growth, PCATT, Sultan Ventures, and XLR8HI.

For more information, go online.