On June 21st, after listening to the teams presenting their projects, followed by an hour of deliberation, the organizers of the 2015 Hackathon-IBM contest for internet and mobile app development awarded first prize to the NitruLife submission, software which allows users to research various personsl nutritional alternatives. Each of the three members of the DTU HKT team won a Lenovo S410 i3 laptop computer. They were Tran Anh Khoa, Nguyen Minh Tuan, and Nguyen Van Hai.
Mr. Pham Kim Son, Director of the Danang Department of Information and Communications, awards first prize to the DTU HKT team
The winners of the 2015 Danang Hackathon-IBM contest
The teams had been provided with special accounts to register and develop their apps on the IBM Bluemix platform.
Recent accomplishments should motivate students to create more advanced apps
“The 2015 Hackathon-IBM for internet and mobile app development, jointly organized by the City Department of Information and Communications and IBM Vietnam, achieved its goal of creating a broad-based ICT application environment to enable students to put their specialized programming knowledge into practice,” said Dr Nguyen Quang Thanh, Department Deputy Head and Organizing Committee Chairman, during his opening speech at the contest. “Danang has been the only place in the country to lead the ICT Index five years in a row. We are proud of that accomplishment, but we have to always meet the required offficial standards to be worthy of the recognition of the ICT community. We plan to promote the development of ICT applications in the many aspects of our daily lives, especially in education and in administrative reform. Danang is also leading the country in the implementation of e-Government, which will soon be extended nationally. The Hackathon also contributes to the development of the local ICT software industry, which is a vital element in the development of our city in years to come. In the early 2000s, Danang had no income from software exports at all, but now that income is in the millions of dollars. This demonstrates our foresight, vision and direction. So we mustcontinue to invest to make software become the economic spearhead of Danang. The 2015 Hackathon-IBM iis one of the technological arenas that helps students improve their expertise in creating technical products to serve our community and promotes an educational environment focusing more and more on these applications.”
Mr. Luu Dang Anh Vu, Director of the IBM Cloud Computing Division, gives a speech
Emphasing the objectives, the Director of the IBM Division of Cloud Computing Division, Mr. Luu Danh Anh Vu confirmed, “IBM is committed to support creativity. We will not stop at awarding prizes, but we will accompany the creators until their projects are turned into actual products. We will encourage them to develop apps based on cloud computing technology, because cloud-based services have become the trend. The cloud is the tool to change the way we work, to change the service environment and technical applications. Danang is considered to be innovative and dynamic and the development of ICT here has left a deep imprint. People who visit Danang and then return are always impressed by the changes, which always offer new opportunities in various fields. Danang has recently, made big advances in the ICT development, with very specific achievements. Among these, the city has won the IBM Smarter Cities award. I believe that contests such as today’s Hackathon, and the positive response they draw from young people, affirm even more clearly that they have inherited and adopted their local ICT accomplishments and deserve the right to be born, live, study and research in such an innovative and dynamic city such as ours.”
Sharing these feelings, Doan Hai Dang, Le Ba Dat, and Nguyen Ba Chinh of the DTU Lucess team explained that Danang is developing very strongly in both tourism and ICT. So they decided to link these two key sectors in their project. ICT supports the development of tourism, with software designed to research many potential destinations. If the software has a high degree of perfection and many users, then tourism will, in its turn, promote the city’s strengths in ICT and communications.
Their software app integrates data from fifty-one locations and 2 to 5-star hotels. Users searching for a destination will receive directions and be introduced to places to stay on the route they take. Inversely, when having determined a place to stay, the software will guide the user from their hotel to points of interest with the route, directions, distances and so on. The authors of the software added an introduction to each of the destinations to assist users in making their choices.
IBM has invested billions of dollars in Cloud Computing to meet client requirements. The company has the most extensive catalog of Cloud services of the world, from Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS).
The IBM representative confirmed that the company is expanding data centers globally, opening up IBM software on the Cloud for programmers to access and ensure easy connectivity to IBM’s cloud services through the online “Cloud Marketplace”. IBM has been helping businesses to innovate, to update their ways of working, their hardware and procedures to stay up-to-date and competitive work in the era of hybrid Cloud Computing.
IBM has announced three important innovations related to Cloud Computing. One is the $1.2 billion investment to expand IBM Cloud services globally with forty data centers in all of the major financial centers of the world. Another is a one billion dollar investment to open up business software on the Cloud to allow programmers to design new apps on the IBM BlueMix Platform-as-a-Service, and the third is the launch of the IBM “Cloud Marketplace”, which allows individual users and communities to easily connect to IBM’s Cloud services.
Dreaming of a large auditoreum, full of people and diverse ideas
“This is the first time that the Department of Information and Communications and IBM Vietnam have organized a Hackathon for internet and and mobile app development. The objectives of the contest have, in general, been met. The greatest achievements were the enthusiastic support from the member universities and the passion and efforts of the students.
Preparations were made by the Danang ICT Infrastructure Development Center. Unfortunately the lead -time was very short and the requirements of the contest quite high. As a result, not many students and other programmers could prepare within the time constraints.
However, with have both gained much experience. Next time, the Hackathon will definitely attract a much larger cross-section of developers and the diversity of app products will certainly be higher,” predicted Dr. Nguyen Quang Thanh, the Department Deputy Head and Organizing Committee Chairman.
The judges awarded the following prizes:
First Prize for the NutriLife product, the prize consisting in one Lenovo S410 i3 laptop for each of the team members of the HKT team: Tran Anh Khoa, Nguyen Minh Tuan, and Nguyen Van Hai of DTU.
One Second Prize for the IsOpen product, the prize consisting in one Lenovo S8 tablet computer for the three members of the EASIER team: Truong Quang Ngu, Huynh Tu Thien, and Nguyen Thi Phuong Dung of the University of Science and Technology.
Two Third Prizes consisting of one 1 TB disk drive were awarded to:
- Tu Khac Nghia, Nguyen Thi Bich Tram, Vo Thanh dat and Doi Tràn Tron (University of Education-University of Danang) for the product Sick Be Together.
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- Doan Hai Dang, Le Ba Dat, and Nguyen Ba Chinh (DTU) of the Lucess team for their DNGuider product. Organizing Committee Chairman Dr Nguyen Quang Thanh stated that these products will continue to be researched, developed, and refined with the support of IBM Vietnam, to compete in the national finals of 2015 Hackathon-IBM competition, to be held in Ho Chi Minh City.
Happy that, out of four teams from his university, two had ended up among the winners, Mr Nguyen Duc Man of the DTU International School confided, “The Hackathon-IBM is a challenge. Its requirements are not easy. That is why the number of developers this year was not high. It is exactly these challenges, however, that help young people with a passion for ICT and a passion for programming, to discover, well before they leave the auditorium, that ‘Technology must serve life and improve the quality of living in our community.”
“People working in science and technology must develop products that serve society. The contest also had an impact on educational methods and curricula in ICT. Universities exist for their students. Each investment must be aimed at improving practical skills and creating special products. In this way students will have their creativity and passion for research activated and nurtured, and then they will be able to dedevelop their own practical projects.”
“The winning products in the 2015 National Hackathon IBM 2015 will demonstrate clearly that education must be oriented towards applications and training skills adapted to the workplace to serve and answer the needs of the community. This is the way we should go.”
“Concentrating on teaching specialized topics will create extraodinary people, but they will not fit in because life is always very practically oriented with very urgent requirements in ICT, and in science and technology in general.”
(Media Center)