A total of 51 students and 16 teachers from 14 different government schools nationwide participated in the Hackathon for Teens which started on 20 March 2019 and held at the Tutong Sixth Form Centre. The program, which is organised by AITI with the support of the STEP Centre, Ministry of Education, aims to introduce students from Years 7 and 8 to the fundamentals of coding and computational thinking. Using the 'App inventor' platform, the students are given the challenge of creating a mobile app prototype which addresses the assigned theme of 'environmental issues'.
At the end of the four (4) days hackathon, the students pitched their app ideas to a panel of judges where the most promising teams are given a one-month mentorship period to further develop their apps. After the mentorship month, participants will present their final applications to representatives from the Ministry of Education, AITI, DARe and selected local ICT players. From there, the top three (3) applications will be uploaded on Google Playstore, which will allow the apps to be used globally.
The Hackathon for Teens shall embed the skills of coding and programming among young students and create a community of interest among teachers and students. Facilitating the event was GroMinda, a local ICT company who coordinated Brunei Hacks – a nationwide open hackathon held in December 2018.
