Mount Pearl hacks its way to civic health with 1st municipal hackathon

Teams can win cash prizes at Hacking Mount Pearl, a weekend event in which teams work together to come up with innovative solutions to problems facing the city.

A few dozen civic-minded individuals will spend their weekend trying to hack their way to a solution for some of the problems addressing provincial municipalities during Mount Pearl's first municipal hackathon.

The three-day event is open to people from all walks of life, says Mount Pearl Mayor Dave Aker, even those who don't live in the city. The main consideration, Aker said, is having a “design view of the future.”

Why a hackathon, an event best known in tech communities as a way to solve coding issues or build new apps?

“You can hire all the consultants in the world and spend a lot of taxpayers' money, but at the end of the day you're looking here for unique solutions,” Aker told The St. John's Morning Show.

It's hoped that about 80 participants will sign up for the event, which starts at the Reid Community Centre in Mount Pearl at about 6 p.m. Friday. People can come with teams already formed or put them together at the event, and the next morning at 8 a.m. the teams will return to spend all day coming up with solutions to a problem facing the city.

Participants aren't required to be coders or otherwise computer-savvy, but the hackathon approach — where teams work to find solutions under a time crunch — is a new way to solve a problem, Aker said.

“Technology is changing at a very, very fast pace and I guess the mystery that we're trying to solve is, going forward, how do we use technology and innovation to ensure that we communicate with our residents and we deliver our services in the most efficient and value-added way possible?” he said.

Cash prizes for the winners

The possibilities for each team's focus are wide. Aker pointed to funding, recycling, resident communication and community engagement as possible areas of focus. Climate change is another place where applying the values of technology and innovation could be useful at the municipal level, he said.

“Using data and monitoring, we can come up with solutions as we go forward with that ever-pressing issue,” Aker said.

Whatever comes out of the hackathon, at the end of it all, is going to be sharable.– Dave Aker

The city worked with Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador as well as other communities in the province to identify issues the hackathon participants will address. Solutions could be of value not just to Mount Pearl, but to other communities in the province, Aker said.

“Their problems are our problems and whatever comes out of the hackathon, at the end of it all, is going to be sharable.”

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Aker said he hopes the experience even launches a few new local businesses by helping to establish a way forward as entrepeneurs. To that end, he sees the hackathon's cash prizes — which for first place is $7,500 cash for the participants and $10,000 in operating capital for their business, along with two seats in the A1Next incubator for 12 months and a 12-month Summit Centre membership per person — as an investment in the Mount Pearl community.

There are additional prizes as well, all to be announced at the 1 p.m. Sunday awards ceremony at the Reid Community Centre: $3,500 cash and $5,000 in operating capital for second place, $2,000 cash for third place, and a $1,000 cash prize for the team that best displays community spirit.

“We want actually to see that that idea gets put into place with the city of Mount Pearl,” Aker said.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

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