Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Anne Ruston has congratulated team Fillet Finder for taking out the Australian prize in the inaugural Australian Fishackathon held over the weekend.
Sponsored by the Commonwealth's fisheries regulator, the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA), Fishackathon is a global initiative of the US Department of State designed to raise awareness and help develop innovative solutions to address overfishing and marine sustainability issues.
Fishackathon 2016 Sydney brought together a range of participants from multidisciplinary backgrounds, for the love of a challenge and a desire to improve sustainability. It was an exhausting, long and rainy weekend for the teams, but worth the effort when they pitched fantastic ideas on Sunday afternoon.
After 40 long hours of brainstorming, collaborating and extreme creative thinking that began at 6pm Friday evening, Fillet Finder reigned supreme for their innovation giving seafood lovers an app to help identify fillets and be sure what they were buying matched the label.
Minister Ruston said she was pleased to hear that the inaugural Fishackathon was such a success, and congratulated Fillet Finder's five person team of Angus Yuen, Benjamin Mo, Edwin Li, Emma Young and Mendel Liang.
"Well done to Fillet Finder and everyone who took part in Fishackathon over the weekend," Minister Ruston said.
"The Australian Government recognises the need for innovation industry, and hackathons are one great way for new ideas to be generated.
"Our Commonwealth fisheries are some the best managed fisheries in the world and we are always looking for new and innovative solutions to improve our fisheries management."
The Fillet Finder app provides consumers with handy information to identify fish fillets when they are at the market. A searchable database provides key identifying information including: images, size, texture and shape information, as well as seasonal information and sustainability of the species.
Utilising open source data and image recognition Fillet Finder impressed the judging panel. In particular the judges liked how the team had interpreted the problem and made consumer awareness and education the key objective of Fillet Finder.
For taking out first place the team received a local prize of $2 000 sponsored by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority and will go in the running for a worldwide grand prize that includes a $10 000 cash prize and an Application Development Grant to help develop their idea. Staff from AFMA were also on hand over the week to provide expert guidance and advice on fisheries management.
Find more information at fishackathon.co/sydney/.
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