The Industry and Innovation Unit’s Innovation Challenge 2023 concluded on Sunday, at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre and Team Infinity Tech Inc was declared the winner of this year’s hackathon, a release from the Department of Public Information (DPI) said.
The teams competed for cash prizes, as well as the opportunity to benefit from a paid internship at SBM Offshore Guyana. The first-place winner will receive $1 million, while second and third place winners will get $300,000 and $200,000 respectively.
The second and third-place prizes went to Team CasTech and Team Logiq respectively.
DPI said that the teams were judged on a number of criteria, including design and implementation, innovation and originality, teamwork and collaboration, and they were tasked with developing software to address scheduling issues.
Members of Infinity Tech, Rayon Hunte and Lloyd Browman, told DPI that they were elated at this achievement, as it was the result of hard work and determination.
Outlining the aim and methodology of their app, Hunte said, “One of the issues we found is that companies have their internal mail calendars, but they regularly have to meet with persons who are external to the company. These external parties don’t have any insight into the calendar. Our app aims to address that.”
Browman said the intention was to invent something that is different, while ensuring maximum functionality.
“Ideally, we want to encourage collaboration between different stakeholders. We think its use would be beneficial to the current sector, and even those who aren’t particularly into ICT, or government related. We think that all sectors can benefit from a programme like this,” he told DPI.
Second-place team member, Maryam Bacchus said she experienced a series of mixed emotions throughout the competition, since this year’s event was more challenging.
The 21-year-old said, “When we were first presented with the challenge, it was very different from the previous years’ challenge. Usually, it would be something broad and you would have to create a solution for that, but this year it was a bit stricter. It was a combination of stress and fun. It started to get a bit fun after we started getting somewhere with our project.”
CasTech worked up an automated scheduling software, called Emailbot, which aimed to make scheduling appointments and seeking available time slots more convenient.
