Linfox now considering tackling other issues with hackathons
Linfox and YBF Ventures’ jointly hosted FuelHack, aimed at developing new and innovative ways to reduce operating costs and environmental emissions by optimising fuel consumption, has seen two artificial intelligence (AI)-focused teams announced joint winners.
Participants pitched their ideas to a judging panel for the chance to win the grand prize.
The combined winners – Tim Kallady of Piccard and Arian Probowo, Darcy Morgan, Nan Gao, Sichen Zhao and Wei Shao of RMITCRUISE++ – took the full $10,000 in prize money as opposed to $8,000 for first place and $2,000 for second place.
The winning teams will also receive $10,500 worth of free coworking space at YBF Ventures.
“The FuelHack was an intense 28 hours. All 10 teams worked incredibly hard to find stand-out technological solutions to optimise Linfox’s fuel use,” says Linfox Chief Technology Officer Nick Delija.
Read how the Hackathon came to be, here
Speaking to ATN, he adds: “It’s definitely the first time we’ve done anything like this, so it’s been great the backing and the support from the Linfox leadership team.
“We had CEO Mark Mazurek out here and he’s fully supportive of this. We’ve got Michael Pickard, our CFO, [who was] one of the judges.
“We’ve got to think differently. We’ve got to be innovative. It’s not always just about price because otherwise it’s a race to the bottom across the whole industry.
“They’ve been very supportive and if this works out well and we get success out of it, we think this will be a way of continuing to help solve problems for Linfox when it comes to how we can improve our efficiency.
“Based on the success of this… we’ve spoken to YBF about running a couple of these throughout the year, but we’re going to see how this goes before we sign up for the next one.
“The next could be something completely different and have nothing to do with trucks or fuel. It might be to do with warehouse processes or how we manage our subbies. We’ll see.”