An innovative app to improve business won a University of Queensland student first place at this year’s Singapore Airlines Appchallenge.
Software engineering student James Gover joined two National University of Singapore students to take part in his first hackathon, while on exchange.
He said the aim of the competition was to develop solutions to help Singapore Airlines solve its business challenges.
“We took on two separate challenges - one tracking food waste and the other tracking inventory,” he said.
“Our solution was a holistic system that is able to track both of these things and can be integrated into existing workflows.
“By automating the process of collecting and analysing data, our solution helps the airline ensure operational visibility and achieve greater speed, accuracy, and cost savings in managing its in-flight catering operations.”
Mr Glover said it was his team’s unique approach that allowed it to make it to the grand finals against more than 400 submissions.
“Our group’s competitive edge was coming up with a design that solved two challenges at once and being able to show a quantifiable impact on the business in terms of annual cost savings,” he said.
As part of the prize Mr Gover won a one week, all expenses paid trip to Silicon Valley.
“The experience of working closely with an industry leader to tackle the big challenges faced by their business was amazing,” he said.
The Singapore Airlines AppChallenge is open to anyone, with qualified participants flown to Singapore to take part in the grand finals.
Mr Gover is completing the Semester in Singapore, and will return to UQ in December.
Media: UQ Communications, Paige Ashby, p.ashby@uq.edu.au
