For Immediate Release
Tuesday 21 September, 2021
Ipswich Girls Grammar School (IGGS) in partnership with Ipswich City Council (ICC) successfully brought the broader community together in a first-time collaborative effort to tackle some community challenges facing the region across 2 major events this year.
The first hackathon #IGGSHACK hosted in May this year was hosted onsite, and saw 25 IGGS students participate across 3 days in a innovative ideation workshop ( hackathon).
Ipswich is the fastest-growing city in Queensland, with the population estimated to increase from 222,000 to 558,000 over the next 20 years. For Ipswich to foster a creative environment for visionaries to emerge, innovate, grow and prosper, whilst being supported by sustainable planning and a philosophy of success, collaboration is key.
IGGSHACK is a community initiative created by IGGS, as part of a greater Innovation strategy for the school. The event engages forward thinking change makers within the school and community to collaboratively create world-class innovative solutions to current problems that the region is facing. With open, transparent problem solving techniques and engagement between the heart of the community, bright minds, fresh thinkers, enthusiastic innovators, creatives and community members, IGGS aims to drive collective contribution and ideate for change while making an impact.
IGGSHACK #1 saw 7 innovative ideas pitched to the ICC council representatives and a panel of judges in May 2021. The solutions addressed the 3 core themes of Safety, Youth and Community.
The specific focus areas were: Safety in and around the streets of Ipswich, low numbers of Kindergarten attendance in the region of Redbank, the lack of interest and engagement of young people in the volunteering sector, youth employment and work experience opportunities, and disability access in and around Ipswich.
The event embraced the diversity of participants who came together to solve shared problems. Across the weekend, teams addressed the specific issues and applied key learnings whilst utilising the essential skills of connection, community engagement, enquiry, collaboration, presentation skills, research, application of findings and pitching.
The weekend event was so successful 3 of the top teams were invited to present at the August ICC chamber meeting to put their ideas forward for consideration.
IGGSHACK #2 hosted on Wednesday 15th September, amplified the level of impact by engaging the entire Yr 8 Cohort of 80 students to tackle the same problems, in alignment with the iFuture 2021-2026 Future Plan for Ipswich.
The single, full day ideation sprint involved a different format of innovative activities. The fast paced sprint-style creative application encouraged the teams to work cohesively and collaboratively to rapidly ideate.
The larger cohort of 80 participants worked in teams of 8 tackling different problems within the themes. The result was 10 innovative solutions presented to a panel of teachers who were blown away by the level of engagement by the students and impressed by their passion to solve community issues.
Solutions such as a nature walk tourist attraction for Ipswich to educate people on environmental challenges and endangered species incorporated art, tourism, history and sustainable practices. There were two teams passionate about creating educational programs to teach and share different cultural backgrounds for minority groups in an effort to create a more multiculturally integrated city.
One team created a program that they plan on pitching to IGGS Principle Dr Britton, to seek permission to start a sustainability club as an extra curricular program. Their aim is to prove the format works, enabling other schools to do the same and use the model as a template.
The event was created and facilitated by IGGS Entrepreneur in Residence( EIR) and Startup veteran Peta Ellis who is also an IGGS Old Girl and grew up in the region. Peta has led multiple program events in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship space Nationally and Internationally. Along with her knowledge and experience in delivering high impact events that drive change, she aims to be a positive role model for the young people at IGGS and the broader change maker community.
The teams passionate about seeing their concepts come to life are able to join the Schools; Young Entrepreneur and Innovator program that runs as an extra curricular program throughout term 4. The program is led by Ms Ellis and will assist the students to further develop their ideas so they can launch a viable business or community initiative in 6 weeks.
In alignment with the iFuture 2026 strategy developed by ICC, the youth of IGGS will play an vital role in ensuring engagement of the young people of ipswich.