Whole School News

GovHack Albany

Over the weekend students and staff from GSG participated in the GovHack international open data hackathon. This year we partnered with the City of Albany and Rio Tinto to host the Albany event in our Learning and Information Centre. A big thank you to Mr Ross Evans and Ms Tammy Flett from the City of Albany who provided logistics and planning support in the leadup to the event.

The weekend opened with livestream messages from sponsors, including Infosys and the Australian Taxation Office. We then heard from our local guest speaker, Ms Lucy Anderton, a local farmer, agricultural economist, and creator of the MyFARMSMART platform. Lucy spoke to us about the use of data in farming enterprises and how innovative solutions and using data to make informed predictions can improve outcomes for farmers.

There were many challenges across the weekend from federal, state, and local government departments. Challenges were themed around AI in governance, digital transformation and sustainable public policy, climate change, and data governance.

Across the weekend, the GSG catering team kept us well-fed. We were also fortunate to have a local software engineer and data specialist, Mr Danny Murphy, who works with the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation, and Attractions and runs his own consultancy. Danny was a wealth of information, and we thank him for donating his time.

Our student team worked hard to explore ideas, conduct research to focus their ideas and develop a pitch video. The solution this team submitted is called Access Enabled—a user-friendly app that caters to the specific needs of individuals, enabling them to access public spaces and feel more included in their community.

We wish our local Albany teams' success as the competition moves into the judging phase.

Mr Kieren Bailey | Head of IT Services / Teacher