Consegna and AWS are proud to be sponsoring the NZTA Hackathon again this year. The event will be held the weekend of 21 – 23 September.

Last year’s event, Save One More Life, was a huge success and the winner’s concept has been used to help shape legislation in order to support its adoption nationally.
The information session held in the Auckland NZTA Innovation space last night, provided great insight into this years event which focuses on accessible transport options, in other words making transport more accessible to everyone, especially those without access to their own car, the disabled, and others in the community who are isolated due to limited transportation options.

The importance of diversity among the teams was a strong theme during the evening. For this event in particular, diverse teams are going to have an edge, as Luke Krieg, the Senior Manager of Innovation NZTA, pointed out, “Data can only tell you so much about a situation. It’s not until you talk to people, that the real insights appear – and what the data alone doesn’t reveal also becomes evident.”

Jane Strange, CX Improvement Lead NZTA, illustrated this point nicely with a bell curve that shows the relationship between users at each extreme of the transport accessibility graph.

Those on the right with high income, urban location, proximity to and choice of transport options invariably define transport policy for those to the left of the curve who are those with low income, located in suburban or rural areas, who are typically more isolated and have fewer transport options.

Luke also stressed how much more successful diverse teams participating in Hackathons usually are. As these are time-boxed events that require a broad spectrum of skills, technology in and of itself often doesn’t win out. Diverse skills are essential to a winning team.

For more information and registration to the event, please visit https://nzta.govt.nz/all-access