It was ‘a long but fantastic day’ at the Joint Research Centre Zeeland, said HZ lector in Data Science Mischa Beckers around 11pm on Thursday 30 May. He looked back on the second edition of Datafest more than satisfied.
This time, the hackathon was all about mobility. Some 50 students from HZ University of Applied Sciences, University College Roosevelt and Scalda worked in teams in the JRCZ Data Science Lab from eight o'clock in the morning until late in the evening on solutions to the traffic congestion around the Sloebrug in Vlissingen.
For this, they had datasets from the province of Zeeland and Rijkswaterstaat at their disposal. They could also call on the knowledge of experts such as Martijn Bierman, Coen Verhoeve, Sanne van de Linde, Radboud van der Linden and Ties van Ederen and coaches Gert Jacobusse, Jolène Cijsouw, Bente Sinke, Michiel Veen, Marijn Jansen, Tina Rozsos and Loek van der Linde. At the end of the day, there were prizes for ‘best use of technology’, ‘best data story’ and an overall prize.
Advice
A jury with Deputy Jo-Annes de Bat, Ferry Brasz from the province, Gilbert Westdorp from Rijkswaterstaat, Alexei Karas from UCR and Ralph van der Wekke from HZ awarded the main prize to the team with Dieuwertje de Beer, Koen Denekamp, Eelke Spijkers, Sebastian Dooly and Niek Wildschut. Based on all the data on road, rail and shipping traffic, they recommended thinking about bridge openings especially during peak hours to reduce congestion.
