Scores of the nation’s best computer talents gathered in Taipei and Kaohsiung from Friday to yesterday to find solutions to overfishing and depletion of fishery resources in the nation’s first “Fishackathon.”
Computer engineers and fishery experts took part in the event organized by the US Department of State as part of its own third annual Fishackathon, which is aimed at identifying issues facing the oceans and fisheries, and to find ways of fighting illegal fishing.
The department’s first Fishackathon was held in five cities across the US in 2014, while last year’s was held in 12 cities around the world.
This year the event expanded to 41 cities and attracted more than 2,000 coders.
Taiwan was the only nation besides the US and Mexico to have more than one city involved in the event.
The event’s Taipei leg was held at the Star Rocket premises in the Syntrend Creative Park, while the Kaohsiung event was held at the National Sun Yat-sen University College of Marine Sciences.
A team from Akubic Corp, an environmental engineering company, won first prize for developing a technique to build low-cost water quality measurement instruments to be used in aquaculture.
“We envision a world in which all fish on the market is farmed fish instead of wild fish, so it is vital that fish farmers can monitor and control water quality in an easily affordable way. Water quality measurement instrument made with our methods might be 1,000 times cheaper than existing products,” team member Truth Hung (洪士翰) said in Taipei.
“It was our team’s goal to develop a cost-effective water quality measurement instrument before entering the competition, and we were lucky that one of the topics of the Fishackathon was about solving water pollution in Great Lakes of North America, which is like solving pollution problems in a fishpond, just on a much larger scale,” Hung said.
Teams that won the second and third prizes focused on tracking and monitoring lost fishing gears.
American Institute in Taiwan Director Kin Moy congratulated winners and participants, saying their efforts to fight overfishing and improve fisheries management were commendable.
Council of Agriculture Deputy Minister James Sha (沙志一) said Taiwan is one of the leading fishing nations and is moving toward becoming a leading country in terms of fisheries management.
“Taiwan and the US are partners of fishing management. The two countries signed a memorandum of understanding in terms of cooperation in fisheries and aquaculture in 2012, and the US has since helped Taiwan join various international fishery organizations. We would like to see the Taiwan-US cooperation continue,” Sha said.
The final winner of the Fishackathon is to be selected by a panel of global judges and announced on World Ocean’s Day in June.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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