iStudent Academy entered two teams into the 2017 GovTech Hackathon – a SITA and governent sponsored event taking place at the ICC in Durban, KZN. The Hackathon brief was that each team had to submit a proposal for an ICT solution to resolve a socio-economic issue within South Africa.
The categories for teams included scholars, tertiary students, tertiary lecturers, government employees and SITA employees – essentially they were competing against working coders. They all competed for the main podium prizes of 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, for which the prize money was R30 000, R20 000 and R10 000 respectively.
We had two teams that entered, which were from Pietermaritzburg and Durban Campus. Pietermariztburg submitted the successful proposal for an online budgeting platform, to help South Africans manage their funds efficiently. Off they went to #GovTechZA!
Our Team consisted of 5 learners, all in 1st year Programming studies –
- Sachin Devdath
- Nhlanhla Shabangu
- Sheldon Venter
- Nikshay Polibaldi
- Zander Groenewald
Our students worked extremely hard to complete their application, coding through the night at the ICC. In total, they coded for 21.5 hours.
In total, 17 teams took part in the Hackathon, consisting of programmers from I.T departments in companies, tertiary students and lecturers.
Our team placed 3rd overall in the Hackathon for thier app, BudgetMe, taking home a R10 000 prize.
In second place was a SITA team of working programmers.
In first place was DUT Masters lecturers team.
We are extremely proud of these students who have studies programming for less than a year with us, and who managed to rank 3rd in South Africa against big names and stiff competition.
Check out thier app at http://www.budgetmer.co.za