We are excited to celebrate the incredible achievements of our Nexus learners who recently showcased their skills and creativity at the Lenovo Hackathon 2024. Competing under the themes “Smart Sustainable Campus” and “Laptop of the Future,” our talented learners from Year 11-13 demonstrated remarkable problem-solving skills and innovation that left a strong impression on the judges.
Our Head of Computer Science, Ms. Hemangi, shared her excitement about this outstanding accomplishment: “A group of our learners participated in the Lenovo Hackathon 2024 and emerged as winners! The hackathon’s themes allowed our learners to showcase their innovation and technical expertise. Competing against talented participants from various schools, they impressed the judges with their creative solutions and practical application of skills.“
Nexus teams walked away with several top spots:
- Champions of the Lenovo Hackathon 2024: Ashlesha, Rochelle, Ryan, and Shirish
- 2nd place: Aldo, Filip, Kaedan, and Khoi
- 4th Place: Dizon, Divyansh, Parameshwar, and Rayed
- 5th Place : Anna, Daisy, Nicole, Prada, and Victoria
The challenge invited participants to design a “Smart Sustainable Campus” solution to address real-world issues related to sustainability, technology, and education. Each team created their projects from scratch, developing code, making prototypes, and crafting detailed presentations. Their hard work was recognised at the EduTECH Asia Fair 2024, where they were awarded prizes such as Lenovo devices, AI mentorships, and sustainability certifications.
We had the pleasure of sitting down with Ryan from the winning team, Short Circuit, to learn more about their inspiring project, Ecocycle:
“For the Lenovo Hackathon 2024, we came up with a sustainable and scalable initiative called Ecocycle. At its core, the initiative revolved around schools purchasing bicycles to encourage both learners and staff to use them as an alternative mode of transportation instead of cars or motorcycles.
To pay, customers would make a deposit to charter the bicycle for a week, with the unique selling point being that they would earn cashback for every kilometre that they cycled. This approach would ensure that the bicycles would be paid for over time and that users would be able to adopt a healthy, sustainable mode of transport. The absence of restrictions on the number of bicycles, types of models, and pricing made the initiative highly flexible and adaptable to the needs of any school.
We came up with the idea while thinking about the Hackathon theme of “Smart Sustainable Campuses”, and considering the features that Nexus has. After brainstorming, we noticed that Nexus has multiple parking areas for bicycles and scooters, and decided to utilise the combined ideas of sustainability and bicycles as the basis for our project.”
Ryan shared that the Ecocycle programme would suit Nexus’s commitment to innovation and align with our school’s sustainable image. In addition to creating a working prototype, the team developed a presentation featuring a custom programme that integrated Google Maps to track distance, linked to a Google Sheet for data storage.
Their dedication, creativity, and teamwork reflect Nexus’s commitment to excellence and innovation. Through opportunities like the Lenovo Hackathon, our learners are encouraged to step out of the classroom and apply their knowledge to significant, real-world issues.
Ms. Hemangi highlighted the importance of supporting such initiatives, noting how Nexus’s ethos empowers learners:
