Single front-door access for women to the services of not-for-profit Dress for Success NSW and ACT are one step closer thanks to the first Innovate for Impact Hackathon AI Hackathon, held in Newcastle this week.
Hosted by NGM Group, the customer-owned organisation behind Greater Bank and Newcastle Permanent, Innovate for Impact brought over 200 employees, technology partners and University of Newcastle students together across two days to develop solutions for three charity partners.
Participants were tasked with creating scalable solutions to improve service awareness and efficiency for each charity.
Multiple prizes were handed out over the two days, with the winning teams receiving the lifechanging opportunity to experience a ‘Day at Microsoft’.
A Greater Charitable Foundation partner, Dress for Success is a service that provides free clothing, styling and career development services to women to help them overcome bias and discrimination. Presenting the challenge of fragmented and inconsistent referral pathways to the service, the winning solution developed a centralised referral booking system that allows clients and referrers to easily book an appointment through a mobile-first portal.
Dress for Success NSW and ACT Operations Manager Rachel Dyer said that opportunity to work with students through Innovate for Impact was a gift.
“To see what they can do and what’s out there has been revolutionary,” Rachel said.
“It will change the way we do business.
“To come up with so many different angles and solutions today, and to be able to implement even just one of them will change our day to day, it will allow us to do more with what we’ve got.”
NGM Group Chief Information Officer Andrew Cresp said he was thrilled with the success of the event.
“We are proud to have held the first Hackathon event of its kind in Newcastle. At NGM Group, we have become a leader in the Hunter region’s technology sector, embracing innovation and practical adoption tools such as AI to help our people work smarter and deliver better outcomes,” Andrew said.
“It was incredible to watch some of the brightest young minds and experienced heads join forces to bring some meaningful outcomes for our charity partners.
“As a customer-owned bank we are here to serve our communities, so it is really important to us to develop technology solutions that have a real-world impact.”
The event also featured lightning talks from Microsoft, GitHub and Arinco, and technology experts from NGM Group and the University of Newcastle.