Students from the Durban University of Technology walked away with great prizes – Xbox, Nokia Lumia Phones and Incredible Connection vouches – during a recent “hackathon” competition.

Held at Duban’s iconic Moses Mabhida Stadium on Friday March 30 t Sunday 01 April, the Durban leg of the Nokia Lumia Student Hackathon competition saw the “DUTechies” (DUT IT students club) walk away with three of the four prizes.

Nokia and Microsoft organised the competition which was attended by 30 students from DUT, University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Wits University, University of Johannesburg, University of Pretoria and Tshwane University of Technology.

DUT Information Technology lecturer Cassim Vanker said the event was brought together to provide a conducive atmosphere for students to design and develop mobile phone applications for the Windows Phone; the rapidly growing platform that powers the Nokia Lumia range.

“Nokia and Microsoft invited students from the nine campuses to build innovative apps. The idea is to get as many new applications into the Windows Phone Market Place which currently boasts 65 000 applications,” said Vanker.

The Durban event boasted a Developer Zone, Chill Out Space, Developer Zone as well as a Snoozzze Zone. Snacks and meals were served throughout the day. Participants received an address and welcome from Dave Russell; Microsoft developer evangelist, Nyaladzi Mpofu; Microsoft academic advisor and Derrick Kotze; Nokia’s developer outreach manager.

Siphephelo Gcabashe who won first place at the competition described the “hackathon” as a once-in-a-lifetime event for him. He said DUT was the most well represented of the Durban institutions; a trait he said was supported by the prize giving where DUT walked away victorious.

“Overall, the event ran like a well oiled machine with no complaints being voiced by any participants. We were served 6 meals a day, all the refreshments we could ask for, a “chill out” zone with 3 Xbox 360/Kinect games, a foosball table and enough sweets and pumping music to have us awake and energised throughout the night and day for that matter. Many thanks to Derrick Kotze from Nokia for organising the event, Dave Russell and Nyaladzi Mpofu from Microsoft for the inspiration and Matt from RogueCode for offering support over the weekend,” said Gcabhashe.

–Sinegugu Ndlovu

Caption: (From left) DUT Students Lehlohonolo Letaoana and Siphephelo Gcabhashe pose with other students who attended the Nokia Lumia Student Hackathon which was held at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium.