‘HACK4CHANGE’ PROMOTES COLLABORATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING

 ‘HACK4CHANGE’ PROMOTES COLLABORATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING

By Phyllia Pisep

The Hackathon 2024 ‘HACK4CHANGE’ was successfully hosted in Papua New Guinea University of Technology from 12th – 15th of July as the first of its kind in Lae, but the second for the country.

The Inaugural Hackathon with Academia was organized by PNG Digital ICT Cluster and PNG University of Technology (PNGUoT) aimed to promote problem solving skills, collaborating, community spirit, team work, mentoring and coaching, investor readiness for Papua New Guinea entrepreneurs, students and or talents’ creative ideas and innovation with academia in solving real life problems.

The senior lecturer for the School of Mathematics and Computer Science, Benson Mirou who has taught at the university since 1993 said, “This program allows for industries to come to us, and all of our stakeholders in the ICT space and sector, which helps us to see how we can align our courses to industry expectations”.

“Industries are coming up with the real problems in the real world, what’s relevant to PNG and so our students can now see where the needs are; which we are teaching them to be problem solvers. Having the Analytical skills to be given a problem, in the duration of the program, they’ve been able to come up with solutions. That’s amazing to see which we don’t often see that kind of capability with our students in the lecture rooms.”

Mr. Mirou said, despite having doubts of hosting the Hackathon for the first time in Lae, it was successfully handled, commend everyone who participated in a way to make it a success.

He highlighted the changes that took place since he started saying, “as a teaching and learning University we want to see our students gain mobility which these kind of programs is essential for us as we will look into aligning our courses; so when these students leave this University, they can secure jobs with reality apart from graduating with degrees.”

He recommended that, “I hope we can have it annually which “I am sure we will have more participants which will create a pathway for industries to partner with us, basically, showing that we have the human resources for them to recruit.”

The teams for program applied through a formal registration process and were qualified to participate.

There were three winning teams for first, second and third placings for the program which the winners showed consistency and effort throughout the program.

Team leader for 1st place team, Rosario Willy, a final year student with School of Mathematics and Computer Science expressed gratitude to be participating in the program. He said, “Winning is onlyan indication that we’re taking a step in the right direction and what we’re really thankful for is the program, the initiatives that the organizers and the mentors took to bring this opportunity us. The highlight was learning from each other.”

“As a final year student, I find there’s a lot of opportunities to network with professionals especially within my industry. It is not very often that IT professionals come along to speak to us but this is a high leap for the School of Mathematics and Computer Science.

“These professionals gave us insights on opportunities and expectations of the industries as well.”

“If this kind of programs happen again, I’ll encourage us students to give it a try and participate in it because you’ll learn a lot. “

Nehmiah Pinia, a Mathematics and Computer Science 3rd year student, added that, “As the teamleader for the team winning second place for this program, this program is an eye- opener which we all learnt a lot within days. It is satisfying to have the industries to actually glance our work and plans.”

He said, “We need to do a lot of awareness for programs like this because not a lot of schools took part. This program was open for other schools to register and take part as well, however, lack of awareness did a downgrade on that.”

The sponsors of the program were International Container Terminal Services (ICTSI),  Department of Information and Communications Technology, Ela Motors, Telikom, PNG Digital ICT Cluster (GIST), Bank of South Pacific (BSP), National Information and Communications Technology Authority (NICTA), Amazon Web Services (AWS) , Papua New Guinea University of Technology (PNGUoT), Centre for Excellence in Financial Inclusion (CEFI), NiuPay.

The Director for NiuPay, who was also a judge during the program, James Inglis said, “I’m really proud to be involved with this program. The ICT Cluster, is a really important part of the education cycle in PNG’s ICT landscape.”

“We’re really passionate about ensuring the next generation of Papua New Guinea have access to these kinds of skills and can understand that be sure that the world in this space is massive and the opportunities for them are not just in PNG.”

Mr. Inglis added, “I am really impressed with the level of work the teams from the faculties of that University have furnished in just a couple of days. I commend the University of Technology for living up to your vision of producing world-class technocrats by taking small steps in programs like this. As the CEO to the University, work with people like us in the ICT Cluster and we can make sure that the curriculum is updated so students are well versed moving forward.”

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How to be a member of the PNG ICT CLUSTER: https://ictcluster.org.pg/becoming-a-member/

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