top of page

Wrapping up Digital Defence Hackathon 2020



Organisations of all sizes and across all industries face a vast array of challenges around securing the critical data that underpins the way they operate. It’s key for these organisations to protect, open up, and to do more with data. Our goal is to support citizen data scientists, and bring together Cloud technologies in creative and innovative ways to solve some of the key problems being faced.


The Digital Defence Hackathon was a single-event hackathon centred around the application of best practice data science and AI processes, to address cyber security threats. This hackathon was aimed at utilising data science and AI to gain meaningful and actionable insights as nations emerged from lockdowns and stay-at-home orders due to COVID-19.


This year we partnered with Oracle, K-tech, IBM, ITIC Systems, NASSCOM CoE, Cyber Security Centre of Excellence and AustCyber as our major sponsors and Public Sector Network, Slack, Black Nova Group, Yirigaa, UNSW DataSoc, SLASSCOM, DataCated Academy and AlEthics4all as our community partners.


The hackathon revolved around the following topics:

  • Anomaly Detection

  • Deepfakes

  • Cybersecurity


There were more than 2000+ participants and 100+ mentors and industry professionals coming from more than 70 countries. Together, they formed over 20+ teams.

The hackathon was supported by globally celebrated panelists, speakers, judges and mentors including:


  • Hon. Victor Dominello- Minister for Digital, Minister for Customer Service, NSW Government & Member of Ryde

  • Guillermo Ruiz- Head of DevRel, Oracle

  • Chris Hockings- Regional CTO, IBM Security

  • Prerana Mehta- Chief of Ecosystem Development, AustCyber

  • Dr Gopichand Katragadda- CEO & Founder , Myelin Foundry

  • Warren Mundine- Chairman, Yirigaa

  • Dr. lan Opperman- Chief Data Scientist, Government of New South Wales

  • Tim Watts- Shadow Assistant Minister, Cyber Security and Communications, Australian Parliament House

  • Christopher G. Chelliah- SVP, Strategic Business Development, Oracle JAPACI

  • Stephen Elbourn- Managing Director, ITIC Systems

  • Gavin Whyte- Chief Al Officer, Public Sector Network

  • Rama Vedashree- CEO, Data Science Council of India

  • Dr. Sriram Birudavolu- CEO, Cyber Security Centre of Excellence

  • Srini Srinivasan- Regional Managing Director, Project Management Institute

  • Steve Nouri- Head of Data Science & AI, Australian Computer Society


The opening ceremony for the Event was broadcasted live on 20th November 2020:



After weeks of judging hundreds of innovative and creative solutions, our judges have finally come up with the best solutions presented in the hackathon.



The winners of the hackathons are as follows:

  • 5th Place Holder : Team TARDIS

Team Members: Arya Anghan, David Sarkies, Mohammed

Ilyas Ahmed, Ritu Kurnari, Szabolcs (Szasza) Palmer

Solution: Utilising incron/inotify, we implemented a Python-based solution using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure which:

* Detects when a file is uploaded

* Registers the uploader's IP address

* Checks the IBM X-Force Exchange database via its API for a matching IP address and a file hash

* If either the IP address or the file content hash is malicious, the uploaded file gets deleted

* Does all the above real-time, the verification happens within a couple of milliseconds from the upload

Click Here to watch their Submission!


  • 4th Place Holder: Team DineDetect

Tearn Members: Jainish Shah, Revathy Sivaraman, Hanifa Baporia

Mentors: Jyotirmaya Patro, Jason Lowe, and Lyn Ward

Solution: We are using Clustering technique to detect the customer demographic information, such as location, account number and phone number. Based on that, we are marking the customers as either a fraudulent customer or non-fraudulent customer.

We are showing our analysis in the form of a dashboard.

Click Here to watch their Submission!


  • 3rd Place Holder: Team Identity Crisis

Team Members: Suchet Singh, Deepit Amin, Astha Chauhan, Atuf Abdul Khader, Shea Mithala Parambath, Khan Nomaan

Mentors: Riyaz Ahamed

Solution: We used an encoded pixel based area within which our face is being recognised, focused on the eye and lip region. This makes use of the machine learning training model, as it is able to recognise and detect whether the image is real or fake.

Click Here to watch their Submission!


  • 2nd Place Holder: Team The Seekers

Team Members: Joey Yuen, William Tin, Nauman Akram, Thulasiram Nagam, Ali Haider, Muhammad kafeel, Maria Sheikh, Rabi

Mentor: Riyaz Ahamed

Solution: Focusing on private networks where you want to apply your own solutions of finding anomalous traffic.

Click Here to watch their Submission!


  • Winners of the Digital Defence Hackathon 2020: Team Black Cap

Team Members: Tarek Chaalan, Imad Mehmood, Andleeb, Robert Dzudzar, Neda AfzaliSeresht, Khai Fahmi Zaki, Asif Rasool

Mentors: Riyaz Ahamed

Solution: We were able to locate and analyse multiple anomalies within the provided business. Anomalies that we found include suspicious large transactions with over $90K, self-self transactions, circular transactions, unusual amounts of money spent on meals and people having double accounts. Utilising Python, NEO4J, Graphistry and Tableau we were able to show this anomalous transaction visually, by creating network graphs and interactive visualisations. With these tools, we have been able to successfully locate Anomalies.

Click Here to watch their Submission!


The Awards Ceremony was broadcasted live on 6th December 2020 on:





A huge thanks to all the participants, mentors, ambassadors, sponsors and partners for being a crucial part of this hackathon, for providing both positive and constructive feedback and making this event a reality!


7 views0 comments
bottom of page