That’s it, this time it’s over! This Sunday, the OGS made a last trip to the University before closing this first edition in New Caledonia with a cocktail party organized in a unique setting: the Maison de l’Amirauté, Noumea. Throughout the week, project leaders, institutions, researchers, students, associations and private sector professionals were able to meet, exchange views and ideas for sustainable growth in the Pacific region. Today, it was time for the last workshops, then for the assessment and thanks. The 48 hours of the Ocean Hackathon organized at OoTECH were also coming to an end with the participants’ pitches and the prize-giving ceremony in the afternoon. Rest assured, for the OGS as for the Hackathon, this Sunday is only a goodbye!
A last day of collective intelligence at UNC
Remember Tuesday, in the Venezia room of the Nouvata hotel, the OGS participants had started their week with a series of workshops. Their objective? To identify the needs and resources required to set up relevant collective projects for the Pacific region. Three themes had been prioritized by the organization, addressing some of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations: territory knowledge, water resources and finally wetlands and the conservation of the related ecosystems.
On Sunday, our participants met again at UNC for the continuation and end of these collective intelligence workshops. After the technical capacities and the available resources, the participants now had to think about the concretization of their projects in an operational way: how to mobilize the identified funding and to temporally plan the actions. A little further down the campus, the OGS also hosted other practical workshops, based on Open Source solutions and tools. The aim was to strengthen capacity-building in Pacific countries and to promote wider access to knowledge transfer. A topic that was very present this week and perfectly in line with the values of sharing and community carried by the event.
After 48 hours of code, the winners of the OH7 are…
At the OoTECH business centre, it was also a busy weekend! Officially launched on Friday evening, the seventh edition of the Ocean Hackathon closed on Sunday after the traditional 48 hours of nonstop hacking for the participants. While the dark circles were starting to appear under the eyes of our project leaders, they had to undergo the final exercise of the “pitch” in front of the event’s jury. Three minutes of presentations, three of questions and answers and this year’s prize was awarded to Raphaelle and Nicolas Danis, Sébastien Lagarde and Christophe Laichouchen. Their project of an interactive map to identify wrecks from the World War II era that contain large quantities of oil – and that could spill into the environment – won over the jury. The winners of this weekend’s event will then take part in the grand final in Brest, bringing together the winners of the hackathons of the 15 other participating cities, in January 2023. For Guillaume Terrien, founder of NeoTech and project manager on OH7, this second Caledonian edition of the Ocean Hackathon was a real success: “First of all, we can be happy to see teams pursuing projects already proposed last year. This brings a certain continuity to the event and reinforces its relevance. Secondly, this year we were part of the OGS, and the hackathon therefore welcomed teams from other South Pacific countries. OH7 thus took on a regional dimension, with New Caledonia as the driving force behind these innovative projects. Finally, I would also like to emphasize that the level of participants has increased again compared to last year, with highly technical and efficient solutions that have every chance of being relevant beyond the event”.
Final bouquet
The official closing ceremony of this “epic week”, as Vaimu’a Muliava (GNC) described it, took place at 4.30 pm at the UNC. Among the highlights was the signing by the Government of New Caledonia, the Government of French Polynesia, the Territory of Wallis and Futuna, the Government of Tonga, the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Pacific Geospatial ad Surveying Council (PGSC) of the “Constellation Statement” to declare their strong willingness to enhance links with key communities and stakeholders, including all Oceanian countries and territories, regional organizations either political or technical, and international organizations.
Jean Massenet – Chief Operating Officer of the startup INSIGHT and co-organizer of the OGS – took the floor to thank all the participants and underline the excellent spirit that surrounded the event. The organization also took the opportunity to give their numerous partner prizes to the winners of the 2022 edition of the Ocean Hackathon. Then it was time to head to the Maison de l’Amirauté for a last drink and a last moment of sharing!
