American industrial giant General Electric (GE) and Mexico’s Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) jointly hosted a hackathon in Mexico City last week to further develop the country’s innovation culture among technology students.

The hackathon was focused on developing applications in the industrial segments that GE operates, and was attended by more than 100 technology students from universities across the country, in addition to university professors and technology professionals from GE and Mexican information technology firm Softtek.

Participants worked on the challenge of building an application that revolutionizes the industrial world, using Raspberry PI, Micro Services, and PREDIX IO, the industrial software platform created by GE. The organizers divided the students into disparate teams of 15 members each and set 24-hour timeframe for creating the apps.

Winners Circle

First place was won by the NDS ITESM team, consisting of José Luis García, Rodrigo Solana, Juan Carlos Leon, Jaime Margolin, and Gilberto Silva, who developed the application “Intelligent Buildings”. The solution demonstrated, in a very short period of time, the chances of using Predix for the fast, safe, and high-quality development of industrial applications.

The second place team was formed by students of La Salle, ITESM, ITAM, and IPN: Tania Patiño, Isai Vargas, David Sanchez, Eric Uriel Octavio Trejo, and Ivan Hernandez. The team developed an application to manage inventory intelligently, according to the type of product, the demand, and storage place.

Third place went to HacksFI from UNAM, including Laura Vanessa Bobadilla, Ari Edwin Cueto, Jose Arturo Vazquez, Alejandro Juarez, Daniel Trápala, and José Andrés Guerrero, who created a system for monitoring gas leaks and water. The application monitors the pressure drop of these components, and sends a security alert to Predix cloud. The resulting data are stored in a base that can then be graphed.

Recent Hackathon History in Mexico

Hackathons are innovative ways to inject competence into professionals, allowing them to turn their innovative ideas into technology products. From civic hacking, to hardware hacking and software hackathons, Mexico has become known for its hackathons.

In Mexico City, there is a school for hackers called Dev. F. Founded in 2014, the school has reportedly played an important role in fostering technology talent in the Mexican capital city.

Analysts say hackathons are vital to creating technology communities, because people keep meeting each other and working together long after the hackathon is over.

Some Mexican engineers were recently awarded a total of $12,500 for developing a potentially life-saving app at the OECD ministerial gathering.