‘Hackathon’ to improve Northpower network
Northpower brought together a roomful of digital experts in a ‘‘hackathon’’ in an effort to find ways to get its own network operating faster.
Northland energy provider, Northpower, collaborated with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Northland technology community in Whangā rei with the goal of using cloud technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to solve common data problems and provide business insights.
They dubbed the event a hackathon.
It was held at digital skills training provider, NGEN Room, and was attended by Northpower, AWS, the Developers’ Institute and NGEN Room, Pacsbridge, and Australian asset analytics software provider Modla, who worked together to find ways to improve the speed and accuracy of Northpower’s asset network.
Northpower maintains thousands of electricity assets across its Whangā rei and Kaipara network, and obtaining and interpreting data to inform maintenance schedules can be a slow and often challenging process, the company says.
Using AWS services such as database analytics, AI, and machine learning, the team were able to produce a working prototype of an AI solution that identified and combined multiple data sets, resulting in improved asset maintenance forecasting.
Throughout the hackathon, AWS shared techniques with the team to explore new ways of converting data from legacy paper such as scanned documents into digital formats, providing the ability for the data to be more easily analysed and used in the maintenance forecasting process.
‘‘It was incredible to see teams come together from different business and community sectors across Northland, who had never worked together, put in long hours of mahi, gain skills and begin an exciting journey towards using AI to get true value from our data,’’ says Andreas Astrom, head of technology and innovation at Northpower.
‘‘Everyone who participated is excited about the opportunities that new technology such as AI can bring, and we’re grateful to our partners for supporting our Whangā rei hackathon and collaborating with us on this project.’’