The Teleios Code Jam concluded on Friday 21st October, 2011. The final day of the competition culminated at the JFK lecture Theatre UWI, where eight (8) teams from the UWI (University of the West Indies), SBCS (School of Business and Computer Studies) and USC (University of the Southern Caribbean) competed for up to twenty five thousand dollars ($25,000) in cash and prizes. Each team had to present software solutions based on this year’s theme ‘Using information technology to facilitate development in a multi-state region’.
The competition had three (3) stages, two (2) of which took place on Friday. Points were awarded based on technical merit as well as for presentation. The third phase was a coding challenge, where the teams had to create an algorithm that solved a problem that they were given on the day within a specified timeframe.
Taking the first place prize of $8,000 sponsored by Illuminat, was team UWICS whose solution allows persons to be notified of events in the community via SMS. Team 4 of UWI took the $6,000 second place prize sponsored by Microsoft, with their crowd sourced approach to music selection for mobile devices. Third place went to Team 2, also from UWI with their SMS based traffic awareness system. They won $4,000 which was sponsored by Fujitsu. A special prize for the best SMS Solution was awarded to yet another UWI team, Team 1 for their Tourism driven application which allows people to find places of interest based on the country they are in. They won 3 Blackberry Smartphones, provided by Digicel. Other solutions presented this year ranged from dealing with crime in the Caribbean, to disaster management and preparedness.
Teleios’ Team Unbeatable presented a robot prototype called Ralph which can be controlled by mobile phone (sms, blue tooth). They sought to highlight the potential use of remote operated vehicles in the Caribbean for high risk situations, such as gathering intelligence on volcanic terrain, searching through rubble after an earthquake, or with un-manned railway transport systems which can be utilized in larger Caribbean territories. Although this team did not compete, their presentation created significant buzz and allowed for some useful feedback from the participants, judges and mentors.
The closing remarks were made by CEO of Teleios Systems Limited, Ronald Hinds. He touched on the role of innovation and showed how the Teleios Code Jam can be used as an instrument to drive innovation in the realm of software development in the region. Making reference to Isaac Newton’s experience with discovering gravity when an apple fell on his head, he stated that “Part of the reason for Teleios Code Jam is to create in the people here [in the Caribbean], the sensitivity, the insight, [and] the confidence, so that if a mango were to fall on your head you would be able to draw similar types of insights”. He highlighted the purpose of the Teleios Code Jam as being one that shows that we are succeeding in producing software solutions of value. He showed the participants that the real value of Teleios Code Jam goes beyond the cheques and prizes that they won, but can be seen in the way events like Teleios Code Jam ‘frees us from the chains that make us less productive than we can be’.
The Teleios Code Jam is a competition aimed at university level students to encourage them to write software solutions that can be applied to real world issues. The competition is in its 3rd year and is hosted by Teleios Systems Limited. To learn more about Teleios Code Jam, please visit codejam.teleios-systems.com .