I feel like I just woke up from the GovHack induced coma.
The dream I had last night was so surreal, and I could remember every detail. In my dream, I boarded an ordinary looking train, just like the one we boarded on Friday night to the launch party.
Once I got in, the train didn’t look like anything I’ve previously seen. The interior was made out of wood, the chairs are scattered all over the place, there’s a black toilet in the middle of the carriage, spilling thick black liquid occasionally, like an active volcano.
A couple of transit staff were standing by each of the doors, they looked relaxed and nice. I asked one of the staff where the train was heading, she said, “Brighton”. Brighton, I had no idea where it is. There were quite a few people, but not packed, they all seem to know where they’re heading and didn’t seem to think this train looked different from an “ordinary” train.
I stayed on the train, and the track turned out to be just like a roller coaster but I didn’t feel like I’d lose my grip. I was nervous, yet excited. There’re not many stops, I pondered whether I want to get off at every stop, but I ended up staying on this weird looking train, all the way to Brighton. Brighton looks like Los Angeles, and that’s the end of my dream. I keep thinking about this dream today, my subconscious might have just summed up how I feel about the past 3 days. Anyway, enough of my silly dreams…
Having attended GovHack gave me a lot of blog post ideas. Although I really want to pour it all out in one go, I am going to break it down into several topics and blog about them in the next few days because 1. it’s #blogjune and I’m supposed to blog everyday and I already missed a day :P, 2. I need a bit more rest.
Today I’m going to write about our project. I’m part of Team =), our project was called Friends with Benefits. Friends with Benefits is a web app that allows users to check if their Facebook friends have any unclaimed money via the ASIC and WA Department of Treasury web services. There are other databases we could use, such as the ATO Superseeker and Fair Work Ombudsman unpaid wages search. They cannot be queried in the same manner, as they require other details such as tax file number or employer name. We have also thought of analysing user’s Facebook friend’s status updates and recommend suitable charities they might wish to donate the money to. This has not be added to the app so in the presentation video we thought if your friends are grateful and kind enough, you could probably take a cut of the money you found for them.
It was not my idea, but it’s really fun to do and most importantly, achievable in 2 days. It’s all programming so I couldn’t actually help (I’m very rusty :)), I’d probably slow everything down if I did “help”. So I just focus on getting our team registered in Hackerspace, doing the project video and helped with the design side of things. While the guys, Steven, Rubesh, and Paul worked on putting the app together.
Do check out our team page in Hackerspace, the source code and our project video. Paul has also created a Prezi about our experience. We’re still in the running for the People’s choice award, if you like our idea, please sign up and vote for us 🙂
//icecjan/ 