While hackathons are now commonplace, it’s rare for service providers to put together such an event. Most times, it falls to government agencies or event managers. Amazon Web Services (AWS), famous for its AWS Hackdays, feel otherwise as it has been running its own takes at the global level. This long-running annual event has seen regional iterations and now, for the first time, is going to country level.
This is a follow-up to last year’s Southeast Asia AWS Hackdays at Singapore. This time, various countries in the region will have their own event to determine the very best among the entries. The winners get to go to Jakarta, Indonesia for the regional finals. Teams that secure a spot will be competing in the first-ever Robocar Rally, one of the major event highlights for AWS re:Invent.
According to Donnie Prakoso, ASEAN Technology Evangelist for AWS – the moderator and person in charge for AWS Hackdays Malaysia 2018 – this whole concept is different from previous years. “Each country in Southeast Asia will have its own Hack Day and have it run for 12-hours straight before going into a round of pitching. The winner will get to compete at the regional finals in Jakarta. Also, instead of following one theme, this year, there are four categories to consider.”
These four – Media and Entertainment; Transportation; Fintech; and eCommerce – allow more flexibility in what participants want to go for. Of course, this being AWS, the categories must engage current IT trends; in this case, they are Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). As for the goal of this hackathon: it’s very much to solve social issues.
“We believe doing AWS Hackdays like this now is timely as the accessibility to new technology and data, along with the know-how to engage them, is more open now. How does AWS fit in? When Amazon built this platform, it worked on customer feedback. Basically, we listened to what customers want and work backwards. From ML, AI, and most features on AWS, they all feature ready-to-use API and task development processes. After all, we want to make these services open and easy to use,” Prakoso adds.
16 teams have signed up for Malaysia’s AWS Hackdays 2018, featuring a total of 53 participants. For Prakoso, that’s a good response as it confirms many are keen to try a new challenge.
“Personally, I’m satisfied with the turn-out. We miss the target by a lot but still, this is something,” he shares.
Interestingly, the teams prefer to focus on Fintech more than the rest. The others are in this order: Media and Entertainment, eCommerce, and Transportation.
The winners of Malaysia’s first-ever AWS Hackdays and quick chats with the teams will be up soon!
