Moka, 27 October 2023 – The winners of PwC’s hackathon CODE OF DUTY were revealed this Friday, during an award ceremony held at the PwC Experience Centre, Moka. After a span of 24 hours, the winners were proclaimed as follows: Winner: The 404 Team, First runner up: Algo X Team, and as second runner-up, the Jury decided to award an ex-aequo third place to two teams: The ‘Test Dimain’ team and the ‘NullPointerException’ team. These teams received cash prizes of Rs 100,000, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000 respectively, and the possibility to secure an internship or permanent job at PwC Mauritius. Mrs. Goolnarr Bhugaloo, Associate Director and Head of the software development team in PwC’s technology department said she was thrilled by the positive response to the event and enjoyed interacting with the next-gen tech. “The participants have brought unique perspectives and experiences to the table, and by working together, they have created innovative solutions hovering over AI with a new mindset. This is exactly what we were looking for!”, she added.
The inaugural PwC Code of Duty is a Hackathon to which next-gen programmers were invited to test their skills against the very best in Mauritius. The call for participants was opened to active students in groups of minimum 3 and maximum 5 students. Each team had to come up with a creative name, and were expected to have a basic understanding of AI development. Out of the 27 applications received, 11 were selected for a closed-door non-stop 24-hour competition.
On day 2 (Friday 27 October 2023), after hours of coding, each team presented its project to a panel of judges, composed of well-established tech pioneers in Mauritius, namely Roshan Koonja, a recognised innovative and transformation leader, Shidan T. Ragavoodoo, a passionate sustainability leader driving transformative change, and PwC Partners Jean-Pierre Young (Advisory Leader), Anthony Leung Shing (Country Senior Partner), Michael Ho Wan Kau (Audit Partner and Learning&Development Head), Vikas Sharma (Head of Digital and Cybersecurity practice) and Mrs Goolnarr Bhugaloo. Judging criteria for the proposed projects included creativity, technical complexity, business value and feasibility.
“There is more to the competition than this,” said Jean-Pierre Young, PwC Mauritius Advisory Leader. Besides its competitive approach, the PwC Code of Duty Hackathon offered a great opportunity to youngsters to showcase their skills and meet other professionals in the industry, the main objectives being to foster innovation and expertise, nurture technological excellence by empowering participants while ensuring they can tackle real-world challenges. As from Day 1 (Thursday 26 October 2023), the participants were coached by several mentors from PwC’s Technology practice and were exposed to expert presentations on the integration of AI in PwC’s business offerings. Mr Young added: “Through their possible internship with us, the selected participants will have the possibility to exchange ideas with like-minded coders, interact with experts, and elevate their AI experience by exploring the latest products, tools, and technologies developed by PwC, and hopefully open doors to a world of opportunities in the tech world”.
The next step is to look into the implementation of the selected projects and make them become reality.