Sharknado!

We had intended to watch a classic movie last night, but Netflix let us down, and we decided to go completely in the opposite direction and watched Sharknado.

It was hysterically funny, because it was so bad, so we all had a great time.

Sadly the melting moments that Declan and I made were a bit burnt, because Callum's timing system failed (for the first time ever). They were still tasty, though.

SIMS harbour walk

We were in two minds as to whether we should do the SIMS harbour walk this weekend (an annual walk from Kirribilli to Chowder Bay, which raises money for the Sydney Institute of Marine Science located in Chowder Bay), given what a busy week we have had.

It was such a beautiful day, though we decided to do it. It took us two and a bit hours, with a few stops for chocolate.

National iAwards - a Merit award!

Well the boys went down to Melbourne for the iAwards. Declan, with BinIT! was there for the secondary schools category. Callum, with WhenThat, was also in the secondary schools category, as well as the Hills Young Innovator of the Year.

That meant the BinIT team had to do their presentation (half an hour including set up time) for the judges, at KPMG on the Wednesday. Callum had to do that, plus also a five minute pitch on Thursday in front of anyone who wanted to come (an audience of about 50 or 60 senior IT executives).

They both did very well, with the judges (and in Callum's case audience) complimenting them on how well they spoke.

Callum's pitch is here.

So at the dinner on Thursday night, they were very excited, and very nervous. Luckily, their categories were both first up. BinIT won the Merit award (which is basically coming second). Sadly, Callum didn't get anything in either of his categories.

Callum was very chuffed, though, when the winner of the Young Innovator of the Year came up to him afterwards and told him how intimidated he (the winner) had been by Callum's amazing speaking ability, and so far has been OK about not winning.

The BinIT team celebrated by working the room - seeing how many business cards they could collect. They didn't find many (the room being mostly virtual) but Declan did find a few people to tweet good luck to.

We are very proud of both of them - they have done amazingly well being finalists in the whole of Australia for best IT innovation in secondary school!

iAwards

A belated post, celebrating Callum and Declan's success in the iAwards! The iAwards

"honours companies at the cutting edge of technology innovation and recognises the achievements of home-grown Australian innovators."

Callum and Declan both entered in the secondary school competition (for BinIT! and Whenthat, and Callum also entered the Hills Young Innovator of the year (for applicants 25 years and under, recognising innovations in the categories of mobile, data and cloud).

In NSW,  Declan's BinIT team won the whole secondary school category, and Callum's Whenthat company got the Merit award (awarded to close runners up).

And Callum won the cloud category of the Hills Young Innovator of the year. That means that they are both in the Nationals, which are judged based on their pitching later this month (in Melbourne).

The picture is of them both celebrating with Champagne (provided by Uncle Bob) in Santorini when we found out (they didn't get to drink any of it, but the adults managed to polish it off!)

Young ICT Explorers!

Today we went to the Young ICT Explorers, and came home with a swag of awards.

Declan was in two teams - the BinIT team, which is his team with Nick and Nikita from last year (gamifying recycling), and the Periodic Survival

(an educational game to teach you the periodic table), a team with his friends from Mosman High - Jac, Finbar and Alex (plus Kane who did a bit but wasn't eligible because it was only teams of four).

Callum was in a team by himself with WhenThat, his very cool timetable app.

BinIT came 3rd in the Year 7 and 8 category, and Periodic Survival came 2nd (so Declan got to get up and down to receive his awards).

And WhenThat won the Year 9 and 10 category. So the family got a first, a second and a third place.

As with last year, they had a great time wandering around to all the other projects and checking them out.

Periodic Survival got a surprise visit from Adam Spencer (amusingly none of them except Declan had any idea who he was).