Singapore Hackathon Cultivates Five Urban Prototypes For Summit

SINGAPORE, June 30 (Bernama) -- From a one-stop portal which addresses the needs of families of Singapore’s aging population, to apps that will reserve parking spaces in major buildings to a crowd-sourced solution helping to eliminate excessive use of aircon in public buildings. These represent just three out of the five shortlisted prototypes developed by teams of engaged citizens at UP Singapore’s recent weekend-long hackathon. These urban prototypes will now be showcased at the World Cities Summit, July 1 to 4 in Singapore and where at least one team will be awarded business funding and support worth up to S$250,000 (US$197,526.96) for further development. UP Singapore is an experiment in ground-up urban innovation. Over 200 of the country’s most engaged engineers, designers, marketers and developers formed teams and collaborated for an intensive 48-hour event last weekend. Demonstrating how the creative use of technology and big data can improve the nation's urban environment, participants had the rare opportunity to access and experiment with previously unavailable big data sets from both government and corporates including: SingTel, EZ Link, SMRT, Ministry of Health Holdings and the Land Transport Authority. A total of 30 teams formed over the weekend to respond to challenges under five key themes -- Education, Tourism, Creative Arts, Community Engagement and Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability -- posted online in advance by engaged citizens, corporate, non-profit and government agencies. The World Cities Summit is the global platform for government leaders and industry experts to address livable and sustainable city challenges, share innovative urban projects and forge partnerships. -- BERNAMA