Key objectives:
- Investigate key issues in the energy sector.
- Transform ideas into prototypes.
- Cross-pollination of ideas and expertise across industries
Upfront defined business cases:
- Business Case 1 – Visualisation and Augmented Reality
- Business Case 2 – Digital IHD Brief
- Business Case 3 – Energy efficiency + Beacon
- Business Case 4 – Energy efficiency + Smart Thermostat
- Business Case 5 – OCR Challenge
- Business Case 6 – Customer Engagement – Telling the story of energy
- Business Case 7 – Simplifying Disaggregation
- Business Case 8 – Smart Thermostats + EDF Energy Engineer Web Portal
Day’s agenda
- Introduction 1h
- Storyboarding 2h
- Wireraming/Coding 4h
- Showcasing 1h
Hackathon details
- Participating companies: Atos, EDF Energy, Samsung
- Total number of teams participating: 8
- Team size: 4-6 people
- Team formation: n/a
- Costs: n/a
- How was the hackathon’s challenge set: The challenge came from the Government Department – how do we get more SMEs involved in supplying to the Public Sector. Atos proposed the Hackathon.
- Date: 24th October 2014
- Duration: 8 hours
- Organisers: Rob Price (ATOS), Selasi Ladzekpo (ATOS), David Dinsdale (ATOS), Charles Delalonde (EDF Energy R&D UK Centre) Robert Dempster (Samsung)
Idea - Simplifying Disaggregation
Concept:
- Improve the visualisation of appliance disaggregated data.
Implementation / Data:
- Team used real energy data (UKERC) to develop their visualisation of disaggregated data.
Innovations:
- Research the use of Bayesian Networks for disaggregation.
- Enriched with secondary data – weather, location and build energy rating.
Further links:
Idea - Thermo Boss
Concept:
- Define your “Thermo Boss” profile
- Compare who can save the most of their heating
- Will you be a thermo-baby or thermo-inator?
Implementation / Data:
- Integrating smart thermostat data into the customer experience
Innovations:
- Competitive game to compete against your friends in local area
Further links:
Idea - EDF Spark
Concept:
- Increase data privacy through allowing the customer to decide what data they share
- Evolves as the customer provides more data if they wish
Implementation / Data:
- Full user interface designed including notifications
Innovations:
- Customers control the data, not energy company
- Designed for non-technical customers
Further links:
Idea - Neighbourhood Watts
Concept:
- Donate energy to friend, local communities and charities
Implementation / Data:
- Full user interface designed
- Developed marketing strategy and customer impact
Innovations:
- Novel concept to help people struggling to heat their homes
- Learn about energy through sharing, cups of tea or TV on standby
- Help increase the trust agenda
Further links:
Idea - My Energy
Concept:
- One stop energy portal
- Understand, Control, Find help
Implementation / Data:
- Live website coded in 8 hours
- Pulling real thermostat and meter data
Innovations:
- Full integrated system with external weather, tariff comparison, smart thermostat and smart meter data
Further links:
Idea - Homes that need us
Concept:
- Evaluate smart thermostat data to highlight homes that need boiler maintenances or heating support
Implementation / Data:
- Full user interface designed
- Integrated smart thermostat data
Innovations:
- Mapping smart thermostat data to generate a visual guide of people who need help
- Used traffic signal system to quickly see homes in need of help
Further links:
Idea - the blame game
Concept:
- Blame people in your house for using too much energy, dob them in and see whose behaviours is the most sustainable
Implementation / Data:
- Coded solution in 8 hours
- Replace the IHD (in home display)
Innovations:
- Gamification, linked to the fact we always blame other people in ur house for turn the thermostat up or using to much energy
- Fun, engaging method to get families to learn about energy
Further links:
Idea - Bary v0.1
Concept:
- Game to engage individuals to explore the energy used by equipment in their property
Implementation / Data:
- Coded solution in C+ in 8 hours
Innovations:
- Individuals turned on and off appliances, that we record for appliance disaggregation
- High focus on game to get consumption with their home
Further links:
The Winners
The winning team was “Neighbourhood Watts”
- Rob Price from Atos
- Corrina Safeio from EDF Energy
- Robert Dempster from Samsung
- Simon Fenn from Pancentric
- Nicolas Pissard from Nitrente
The prize was a Netatmo Goody Bag including Smart Thermostats, Weather Stations and Rain Gages.
The Runners-Up were “The Blame Game” team
- Stuart Roberts from EDF Energy
- Paul Tippins from Samsung
- Peter Rints from Atos
- Matt Doltis from Atos
- Vin Summer
Learnings
- Hackathon are a great way to build collaborative environments for idea generation.
- Simple proof of concepts can be developed in a short-time frame: 8 hours.
- Using pre-defined business cases made from EDF Energy business units really accelerates the design process.
- In the future, more work should be done to help get individuals set up with coding environments, IT equipment and UI design tools.
What went well:
- Clarity of problem is paramount
- Having predefined business cases
- 3 minute pitch is just right
- Team make up with one member from each company
What should be improved:
- Increase number of graphical designers
- Food must come earlier in the morning before people arrive
- Smaller teams size from 2-3 people