The 54-hour innovation marathon gathered 80 of Western Australia’s most talented software developers, data scientists and other tech-savvy individuals, whose problem-solving skills were applied to design solutions to resource industry issues.

The competition, the second since last year’s inaugural event, was a great success, with participating teams designing promising prototype solutions to the five challenges brought by Iluka Resources, acQuire Technology Solutions, CSIRO and the Minerals Research Institute of WA.

Four teams and their prototypes were named winners by the judging panel, with the first prize ($2500 cash plus $3000 in Amazon Web Services credits) going to the J Bay team for their innovative approach to automating the process of identifying promising exploration opportunities in mineral sands, using signal processing and analysis.

The prototype was built in response to Iluka’s challenge and was praised by the panel, according to event founder and organiser, Perth’s Resource Innovation and Information Technology (RIIT) group.

“They absolutely blew the judges away,” RIIT director Justin Strharsky told Mining Monthly.

“They converted a whole bunch of data about the geology of Australia into a certain type of signal that they could process much quicker.

“They were able to then demonstrate that through that transformation of the data they could speed up the process by a huge factor, reduce the complexity of the processing that they would have to do and, then, they quickly found the high probability locations where Iluka could look for these mineral sands deposits.

“The prototype they built was different from the other ones and they really impressed the judges because it showed not only a good understanding of the challenge by Iluka, but also a truly innovative approach and out-of-the-box thinking.”

Iluka exploration and geology general manager Victor Hugo was one of the judges on the panel. He said he was excited at the opportunities presented by the winning solution and said he was looking forward to its further development.

“We’re quite excited about what they did,” he told Mining Monthly.

“They were able to simplify one key criterion, which can be a very complex dataset and a complex problem… and they developed a prototype that provided a correlation between the coastline and the [mineral] shapes that we were looking for.”

Hugo added the other three prototypes presented by other teams at the event also had potential to turn into real industry solutions. As such, he said Iluka invited all teams to meet with them next week and formally present their innovations.

J Bay team member Merrick Cloete, 22 and student in computer engineering, physics and maths at the University of Western Australia, shared his excitement with Mining Monthly.

“It’s really exciting and the four of us are pretty pumped for it,” he said.

“I guess we just want to keep working on it [the prototype] now and see what Iluka wants to do with it or what they think about it and take it from there,” he concluded, describing himself as always having “a bit of an entrepreneurial kick”.

The other four challenges included two from RIIT; one of them involving the potential use of geotagging and geofencing to boost efficiency and health and safety of mining operations; and the other was about ways that the resources industry could use augmented reality.

The AcQuire challenge was about finding a way to automate the quality assurance and quality control process to quickly categorise and communicate mineral sampling errors; while the MRIWA and CSIRO asked participants what insights industry could gain from the laterite geochemical dataset of the Southwest of WA.

While numerous teams tackling these challenges unearthed interesting solutions, only four won prizes. 

The second prize ($1500 cash + $2000 in AWS credits) went to team “Nanocore” for their real-time QA/QC automated process management tool in the AcQuire challenge. 

The “Iluka Open Innovate” prize ($1500 cash + $1000 in AWS credits) went to team “Big Data 6” for their solution, “Jaywatch”, which detects coastal features that are associated with mineral sands deposits using fractal geometry and machine learning.

The final prize, for “Young Innovators” ($1000 cash + $1000 in AWS credits) was won by team “Anomalies” (with all members under the age of 25) for their work to improve QA/QC in mineral sampling.

Strharsky said RIIT would now review all of the prototypes built and approach certain teams about joining the group’s Accelerator start-up program, which would give them seed investment of $70,000 and connect them with industry mentors who can help take their prototype into a commercial product.

He added RIIT was getting ready to take Hackathon national for the first time. The next stop will be in Brisbane in May, with the winners at the event expected to present their innovations at the AustMine technology and innovation conference that same month.

“We just signed a memorandum of understanding with AustMine and they recognised that what we’re doing is critical for driving innovation into the sector,” Strharsky said.

“AustMine will tell the stories of these innovations and help us get the word around about them [and] we have a chance to present at AustMine what we are doing and then introduce the audience to the winners at the Brisbane event.”

Looking ahead, he said he hoped Unearthed and its Hackathons would continue to do well. The Unearthed program is designed to connect technology start-ups and innovators to industry to bring new perspectives and solutions to their recurring challenges. The initiative is low-risk for industry and could reveal an important game-changing solution to bring more innovations into the sector, especially at a time where commodity prices are weak and companies are cutting costs.

“We actually think that this is both the best and the worst time to do this [Unearthed],” Strharsky said.

“It’s the worst time because companies don’t have the free cash flow to support what we’re doing that they had six months to a year ago. On the other hand, there’s never been a more important time to invest in innovation.

“They absolutely need to lower the cost per tonne of resources that they bring to market or the cost that it takes them to produce oil and innovating in technology is one way they can do that.”

He said he and RIIT would like to see Australia become the best place in the world for developing innovations in the resources sector.

“We absolutely have all the infrastructure that we need and some of the world’s biggest resources companies have operations here,” he explained.

“We have some of the best institutes of higher learning that are focused on that energy and petroleum and minerals industries and we’ve got some of the smartest data scientists and software developers in the world.

“If we put those pieces together we can make Australia the best place in the world to build technology products for the resources sector.

“We can create the next generation of jobs in Australia. As the commodity prices are falling we need to be considering our future and we think that adding value where we already have strength in the resources sector is one way to do that.”

Unearthed was supported by the WA Department of Mines and Petroleum through a $25,000 grant, with Minister Bill Marmion saying the program and the innovations presented at the Hackathon can potentially transform the mining industry.

“We’re backing the WA event financially because we’re backing the jobs that the rapidly growing tech sector is generating,” he said at the launch at the weekend.

“I am excited to see an event that delivers real results, especially with technologies that increase efficiency and reduce costs, both crucial factors in the competitive world of mines and petroleum.