Creating social impact through automation

The University of Melbourne’s Networked Society Institute, in collaboration with Ciena® and nbn, today launched this summer’s AutoHack18.

Running 1 December – 1 February, AutoHack18 is a unique extended form hackathon in which University of Melbourne students create innovative automation solutions using the Blue Planet software suite.

Interdisciplinary teams will create applications that leverage the potential of automation to deliver positive social impact, and be judged for their innovation, benefit to society, commercial and practical viability.

Possibilities include making self-driving vehicles safer, improving health care or enhancing our cities with the Internet of Things.

Networked Society Institute Director Thas Nirmalathas said AutoHack18 provides an opportunity for students to create the future.

“Students will be developing real world, automated solutions that will deliver a positive benefit to society,” Professor Nirmalathas said.

“By collaborating with Ciena and nbn, students will have access to leading edge technologies to enable innovative applications.”

Ciena Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand Matthew Vesperman said they are delighted to sponsor and be part of AutoHack18.

“Working with Asia Pacific network providers, and seeing the potential impact of nbn, has shown us how innovations like cloud-based applications and the Internet of Things can potentially bring new network management challenges to network providers,” Mr Vesperman said.

“We are excited to see AutoHack18 participants tap into the Blue Planet software suite’s capabilities to create new solutions for a smarter, more adaptive and automated network.”

nbn Chief Technical Officer for Programmable Networks Carolyn Phiddian said the full value to Australia of having a world-class broadband access network will be realised when it is used to deliver future technology based services, like those anticipated to be developed at AutoHack18.

“nbn is proud to support AutoHack 18. We believe that technical innovation and the skills needed to be successful in this event will be key to Australia’s future productivity and competitiveness in the rapidly evolving connected world,” Ms Phiddian said.

For more information, visit: networkedsociety.unimelb.edu.au