Well that was a truly epic week in Wollongong!

We awarded over $32,000 in prizes at last weekend’s Hackagong held July 20-21, 2013 at the UOW uniCentre, and Demo Day held Wednesday July 24, 2013 at the WIN Entertainment Centre. Hackagong attracted over 100 competitors across 34 teams, competing across 9 different category competitions from game development to 3D printing, and over 150 people were in attendance during the weekend. Some teams traveled from as far away as Canberra and Melbourne to compete!

After 30 hours of design, code, build & launch (and little sleep) all competitors produced truly spectacular prototypes, and an amazing group of judges decided all of the category prize winners including the Top 10 teams.

The Top 10 teams then pitched for the Major Prize on the main stage at Demo Day, as part of the #IllawarraDigital2013 expo, to an audience of over 100 including a panel of notable judges. Over 40 local startups and Hackagong teams showcased their products at Demo Day to hundreds of members of the public including Australia’s top business leaders and entrepreneurs.

The winner of the Major Prize and overall winner of Hackagong 2013 is Peereo!

Peereo (Matt Stimson, John Redwood, Yetrina Battad) is an education and networking platform. The platform is designed to improve primary and secondary school teacher effectiveness, as well as offer them new sources of career and professional development. As a by-product the service produces free, world-class content for all students.

The Peereo team has won an awesome prize pack to help them turn their prototype into a global startup. The prize includes: $5000 cash (thanks to Pactera & Tibra) + desks at StartPad (thanks to iAccelerate) + $2000 of legal advice (thanks to Access Law Group) + mentoring + pitch training + business consulting (thanks to Spoon Consultancy)!

Thankyou again to all of our supporters and sponsors!

The following are just a few of our favourite photos from Hackagong 2013 that give an awesome overview of what the event entails, and the kind of technology competitors play with to build innovative prototypes and products. For a full gallery of photos from Hackagong and Demo Day checkout our Facebook page, and feel free to re-use any of them with attribution.