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Stephen Duff (left) of Innovacorp presents Parsa Sarshar, Pedram Abidi and Mehran Zamani of Sol-Ops with the winning prize.

Innovacorp and ShiftKey Labs 鈥斕齮he Dal-hosted information and communications technology sandbox 鈥� set the stage for the first-ever Halifax听听this fall.

Kicking off with a 鈥淗ackathon鈥� event in late September, 40 participants across 10 teams were challenged to develop a new app to benefit participants in Halifax鈥檚 Solar City program, which offers homeowners and businesses in Halifax with solar energy options. 听

With data from the program at the ready 鈥� collected from 20 sensors from installed thermal systems that measure temperature, flow rate and solar flux 鈥斕齮he teams had to find a way to use this data to add value for customers using the solar-powered hot water installations.

Last month, the results were announced, and the successful teams featured several Dal students. The champion: Sol-Ops, created by Pedram Abidi (Research Associate, Institute for Big Data Analytics), Parsa Sarshar (Master of Computer Science student and Research Assoicaite in the Institute for Big Data Analytics), and alumnus Mehran Zamani. The app optimizes the economical and environmental usage of solar hot water systems by understanding the user鈥檚 behaviour patterns and showing them what behaviours should be continued or changed, in order to reduce their hot water system鈥檚 energy consumption. The team received a $6,500 prize.

Two teams tied for runner-up. The first was PayRays created by student Sam Jawich (Bachelor of Informatics student), with alumni Eric Noel and Majd Hussini. The second HFX Smart Solar with team members including PhD students Anh Dang and Shadi Shehadeh with alumni Abidalrahman Moh'd, and Hatem Nassrat.

Providing opportunities

The goal of the competition was to support emerging IT talent in identifying opportunities in the energy sector.

鈥淲e鈥檝e been seeing a tremendous amount of talent and drive in our local IT start-up community, but unlike other jurisdictions, we weren鈥檛 seeing those skills and energy directed towards smart energy innovation,鈥� said Stephen Duff, Innovacorp鈥檚 president and CEO. 鈥淲e wanted to create an opportunity where we could nudge the existing skills towards this burgeoning sector.鈥�

Hence: the hackathon, an event where computer programming, business, and design students get together to develop new software ideas. Many groups across campus are working hard to encourage students to adopt a more entrepreneurial mindset, and hackathons help in this quest.

鈥淗ackathons are important events for universities as they are a great vehicle to drive innovation,鈥� says Grant Wells, program manager at ShiftKey Labs. 鈥淭hey bring together people with diverse backgrounds to tackle a challenge in a very short period of time.鈥�

Beyond hackathons,听听offers students a broad mix of resources, supports, and opportunities for individuals wishing to experiment with and develop start-up ideas containing a technical component. They provide free, physical space to collaborate on ideas within your own team and learn from other lab residents. (Learn more: shiftkeylabs.ca)

While working through their degrees, students now have many opportunities to attend activities like this on campus that teach them how to innovate quickly 鈥� and the hope is that the groundwork will be laid for developing future ideas.

鈥淲hen organizing a hackathon, of course you always worry about things like will people come, and if they do, will they just come for the prizes, for the free pizza, for the good times,鈥� says Duff.听 鈥淲e were delighted with what we saw that weekend and in the weeks since 鈥� real innovations with real problem-solving and market potential.鈥�

Teams of the Smart App Challenge were judged on their ability to clearly communicate their idea, if their idea had the potential to change user behaviour or make an impact on resource use, ease of user experience and app functionality.

Potential through partnership

For ShiftKey Labs and Dalhousie, the opportunity to team with听听on the challenge was a welcome one. The organization works to find, fund, and foster innovative Nova Scotia start-ups and provides entrepreneurs with access to incubation facilities, expert advice and other support to help accelerate into companies.

鈥淯ltimately, here at ShiftKey Labs, we would like to help students start off on the right track by providing free, physical collaboration space to test out ideas and provide the right supports to learn at a very early stage whether their idea will solve a worthwhile 鈥榩ain point鈥� that customers are eventually willing to pay for,鈥� says Wells.

鈥淪tudents should feel prepared to advance their idea to the next phase of incubation or acceleration and know what resources 鈥� like Innovacorp 鈥� are available to them in the region.鈥�

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