A hearty congratulations to Bioinformatics students Kok Herng, Chong Yoong Sim, and Wong E Chern from the Faculty of Science, who were part of Team Malaysia that emerged as the winners of the 7th Ocean Hackathon Grand Finale held in Brest, France on 9 February 2023.
The team consisted of students from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and University of Science Malaysia (USM), and they developed an innovative jellyfish tracking mobile application, JellyGo, for their project titled 'Development of the first prediction model for the jellyfish distribution and appearance in Penang Island.'
JellyGo utilizes citizen science data and long-term monitoring data from Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies (CEMACS) at USM to predict the blooming periods of jellyfish around the coastal areas of Penang. It can be used to monitor, identify, and predict the distribution and appearance of jellyfish in Penang Island, report on jellyfish stings, jellyfish sightings, and other jellyfish-related incidents.
Moreover, JellyGo has a smart image detection system that provides information on first aid assistance and emergency measures for jellyfish stings, advising on the best response to the situation.
For their remarkable achievement, Team Malaysia will receive a subsidy of 5,000 euros (RM23,000) to develop their promising project further.
The team earned the opportunity to represent Malaysia after winning the 7th edition of Ocean Hackathon®, held in Kuala Lumpur from 2-4 December 2022.
At the Grand Finale in Brest, France, Team Malaysia beat the winners of the 11 local finales of Ocean Hackathon® from Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Boulogne-sur-mer (France), Brest (France), Cape Town (South Africa), Klaipeda (Lithuania), La Rochelle (France), Mexico City (Mexico), Noumea (French Polynesia, France), San Francisco-Sausalito (USA), Santiago (Chile), and Toulon (France).
Ocean Hackathon® is an international pitching competition launched in 2016, focusing on developing prototypes driven by digital data to solve complex oceanic challenges worldwide.