Young “Hackers” Help Canada Cartage Fight Cargo Theft

February 8, 2019

Published by trucknews.com, February 5, 2019 —

HAMILTON, Ont. – Canada Cartage recently engaged Ontario university students to help fight cargo theft.

More than 600 students participated in 30-hour non-stop “hack-a-thon” event called DeltaHacks on Jan. 26-27. Participating businesses presented the hackers with challenges, and students then spent 24 hours developing technology solutions to the problem.

The students worked all night in teams to build their solutions, which were then judged, and winners selected.

Canada Cartage participated as a sponsor and challenged the hackers to develop a theft prevention app that could provide an early warning, real-time alert to operations’ dispatchers that a theft may be in progress.

Nineteen teams accepted the challenge and engineered a range of software and hardware solutions. They included using artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks, radio frequency ID tags, Internet of Things solutions, and mobile phone apps. Andrew Cree, chief information officer of Canada Cartage was among the judges from the company, and was impressed with the results.

“We are excited with the quality of the solutions presented, as well as the incredible talent and enthusiasm exhibited by the students,” said Cree. “IT will hold follow-up meetings with the students from the top three teams to further investigate the viability of their solutions.”