Two winning teams have been selected in the first Altice Labs Hackathon – HAL 2018, under the theme “Smart Campus”, which was held from the 21st to 22nd February 2018 in Aveiro.
The first place was assigned to the team consisting of Alberto Correia, Nuno Dias and Nuno Carapeto, who developed a biometric access control system integrated with the existing system (Segura), allowing employees to access physical facilities by facial recognition.
The second place was assigned to the team composed by Nuno Farinha, André Almeida and Ricardo Nascimento, who implemented a queue detection system in the Altice Labs restaurant, able to estimate the service time and, at the same time, manage the available menus.
The winners were announced during the opening speech of Altice Labs’ 2nd Anniversary ceremony and received trophies from Alexandre Fonseca, CEO of Altice Portugal, and Alcino Lavrador, General Manager of Altice Labs.
Altice Labs Hackathon – HAL2018 lasted 48 hours and had the participation of 7 finalist teams who set out to develop projects capable of solving problems at the Altice Labs Campus, making it more practical, sustainable and dynamic, or simply using technological solutions that simplify the daily activities of collaborators. In addition to the projects already mentioned, there were also projects that covered different areas of the Campus day-to-day, such as the detection of free spots in the parking lot, with information available in an Android app, or a system that provides information on the consumption of energy per floor and per building, and whose main goal is to raise awareness of the company and employees towards energy saving and environmental sustainability through healthy competition between buildings/ floors.
Also, projects related to the management of meeting rooms were developed as a shared physical resource, with the possibility of room scheduling, alternatives suggestion, rooms check in and check out, etc. A personal assistant concept for Smart Campus was also proposed, with suggestions of use that include the integration of several services currently dispersed by various support applications.
The organizers were surprised by the quality of the ideas submitted and the involvement of the participants. Alberto Correia, one of the elements of the winning team, when asked about the event said: “I felt welcomed and treated well by the organization. It was very challenging, very interesting ideas came up for the Altice Labs Campus and I hope some of these ideas can really be taken advantage of”.
Cristina João Pires, member of another team and the only female participant, highlighted as a positive aspect “the fact that other employees and colleagues joined in at the final pitch”.