Next month coders, data analysts, marketers, graphic designers, communicators and passionate community members will descend upon the Civic Centre to take part in one of the world’s biggest hackathons, GovHack.

Following the success of last year’s inaugural event, Wyndham City will again take part in this open data competition, which runs simultaneously across Australia and New Zealand over a 46-hour period.

From Friday 7th to Sunday 9th September 2018, participants will have the opportunity to come together in teams to develop ideas and projects using publicly available, open data.

At the end of the event everyone will submit their entries, with one participant being presented with the Spirit of GovHack award. Each of the entries will then be presented to GovHack Australia, who will announce the winners of each competition.

Wyndham City’s Smart city portfolio holder, Cr Aaron An, said he was excited to see what ideas people would come up with at this year’s event.

“Last year Wyndham City hosted GovHack for the first time and it was a huge success. We had the second largest number of participants in Victoria, with more than 100 people taking part,” Cr An said.

“Six teams created 16 entries using the data available, with one, TreeMate, going on to win a national award. The developers of TreeMate created a mobile game with the objective of collecting information on all the unique trees in a neighbourhood to motivate people to get out of their houses and connect with the environment.”

“I can’t wait to see what comes out of Wyndham’s GovHack event this year. Wyndham is a municipality that is facing more challenges and opportunities than many other areas in Australia and we need to continue to look outside of the square when it comes to meeting them head on. GovHack is one way we can encourage the kind of thought that will guide us into the future and Wyndham City is proud to be part of this global push towards innovation.”

GovHack will be hosted at the Wyndham Civic Centre, 45 Princes Highway, Werribee, from Friday 7th to Sunday 9th September, 2018.

For more information visit www.wyndham.vic.gov.au.