Smarter Suffolk Data Hackathon

STUDENT AND STAFF SUCCESS

Smarter Suffolk Data Hackathon

Over sixty people gathered for Suffolk County Council’s, Smarter Suffolk Live Labs Data Hackathon at the DigiTech Centre, Adastral Park in October. An innovative collaboration between the University, Suffolk County Council (SCC) and BT, the day was an exciting opportunity to explore and develop new ideas in the science and data behind decisions that drive SCC’s highways services. It is part of a three‑year technical research project from Dr Hannah Steventon and Prof Nicholas Caldwell in the School of EAST.

Our students and staff worked alongside domain and data specialists from SCC, applied researchers from BT, and technical experts from equipment suppliers. Students from our BSc Computing and new MSc Data Science and Artificial Intelligence courses collaborated with industry experts to develop new ideas with the available data. The Hackathon was designed to work on key challenges faced by SCC, ambitious to transform air quality, road usage, winter gritting, gully cleansing and street lighting. Focused on tangible outputs and practical solutions, students were challenged to unlock new ways of thinking around SCC’s data, contributing to the council’s innovation strategy.

SCC’s Executive Director Mark Ash, and Lisa Perkins, BT’s Director of Research and Innovation welcomed attendees, and Adam Oliver from BT’s Hothouse team facilitated the day. SCC Live Labs team and domain experts, product experts and partners, all gave talks and introduced challenges. Ian Thurlow from BT introduced students to BT’s Data Exchange and the data available to them.