D3 Active Ageing Challenge

D3 Challenge pitch night

We love a challenge!

Every now and then we like to pit our skills against our peers. Last year it was GovHack and this year we entered the D3 Active Ageing Challenge with a $10,000 grant up for grabs. Entering events like D3 lets us explore new and exciting areas that we wouldn’t normally encounter and allows us work with and meet a wide range of talented people.

What’s it all about?

The D3 Challenge brings together entrepreneurs and state government to Discuss, Design & Deliver (the 3 D’s) digital solutions that address current social issues - in our case, Active Ageing: Promoting activities for a lifetime of fun, health, community and engagement. Allowing people to maintain a happy and healthy life by engaging in appropriate activities.

koolth and the gang (our team name) had an impressive line-up, with a diverse range of killer skills that were particularly suited to the 3 stage challenge:

• Stage 1:   Understand and define the problem area (issues in the Active Ageing space)
• Stage 2:   Explore and develop ideas (possible digital solutions)
• Stage 3:   Pitch solution to expert panel

Our digital solution was EventAware – an online aggregator of existing Active Ageing events. Unlike most event information systems, EventAware ‘pushes’ data based on the current location of the user (thereby reinforcing and supporting local communities, which research showed was important to people).

However, the real innovation in EventAware is the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices - such as printers - that can deliver local event information without the need for any IT skills on behalf of the user.

The result

The final pitch took place at The Science Exchange on Thursday 3rd October 2015, and although we didn’t win, koolth and the gang received a ‘highly commended’ as well as direct entry into the upcoming eChallenge competition.

Congratulations to all who took part; especially the koolth and the gang team; Dr. Julie Douglas, Megan McDonald, Rhys Moult, Dr. John Flackett, Emma Berry and Geoff Haygreen. We’d also like to thank the whole Better Together team who organised the D3 Active Ageing Challenge (part of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet in South Australia).

ARTICLE TAGS: D3 ACTIVE AGEING CHALLENGE | DEPARTMENT OF PREMIER AND CABINET | EVENTAWARE | KOOLTH | SOUTH AUSTRALIA