Smarter Suffolk Hackathon

Join us for a day of exploration and development to discover the science and data behind the decisions that drive Suffolk County Council’s street lighting, road networks, and winter services.  The Smarter Suffolk Hackathon is a ground-breaking collaboration between University of Suffolk students and staff, Suffolk County Council, Suffolk Highways, and BT Applied Research, in which you are the most important participant.

This Hackathon is designed to work on some of the key challenges faced by Suffolk County Council and Suffolk Highways and their ambition to transform local authority services.  You will have a day to work at your pace with data and problems, with access to Suffolk County Council, BT, and University of Suffolk for any queries that may arise.  You’ll have the opportunity to explore decisions and challenges in air quality, winter gritting, traffic flows, gully data, and street lighting.

Focused on generating tangible outputs and practical solutions, your insights will unlock new ways of thinking and new visions on Suffolk County Council’s data.  The event will contribute to Suffolk County Council’s innovation strategy.  So hack, explore, question, balance, and challenge!!

We will start the day with presentations and challenges from Suffolk County Council, Suffolk Highways, BT and University of Suffolk technical experts, then let you loose with data access from BT’s cutting edge project-specific Smarter Suffolk Data Exchange.  Throughout the day you will be able to present your ideas and discoveries to our panel of experts.  Feedback will be provided along with a certificate of participation after the event.

We encourage collaboration in teams that you’ve created, or you can work individually. We have set up a Teams site for the event which we will share with you after you have registered.  You can find some background on the aims of the Hackathon, but all will be made clear at the event.  Ideally, each team should include somebody with experience of a programming language such as Python or Java.  Participants with different backgrounds and skill sets are most welcome to join teams having these skills.

We look forward to you joining us for this unique opportunity to delve into county wide traffic and environmental data and explore the needs of serving our population.  The provisional agenda is as follows;

09:00     People join

09:05     Welcome & Hackathon Introduction

09:15     Address by Rachel Maclean (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the DoT)

09:25     Welcome from Suffolk County Council

09:35     Setting the scene by BT / Suffolk County Council / Suffolk Highways

10:00     Overview of BT’s Data Exchange and data  sets – how to use BT’s Data Exchange

10:20     Session 1 – explore data sets and form initial ideas – in groups or individually

11:20     Break

11:30     Session 1 review  presentations

12:15     Lunch

13:00     Session 2 – develop ideas

15:30     Break

15:45     Session 2 review presentations

16:30     Wrap up session

17:00     End of Hackathon

This Hackathon will be facilitated by Adam Oliver of the BT Hothouse team with support from Ian Thurlow (BT Applied Research) and Dr Hannah Steventon (University of Suffolk).