A team of students from the School of Communication Arts have won £2,000 in the first Swarm London Hacakthon run by Havas Media and Mobext.

During the two-day event, the team designed a mobile app platform that transformed the great British pastime of moaning into a useful community tool. Once the moan reached an agreed threshold, automated petitions could be sent to instigate positive change from the authorities responsible and to prompt local news coverage.

The runners up, who each received an iPad Mini, created the Taxparency app to  give council tax payers an opportunity to ensure their voices were heard on local investment plans. The brief was to design an app that would give people a voice.

The teams were mentored during the weekend event by Kieran Bourke, MD of Mobext, along with James Fox, mobile development director. Chris Hodgson, head of development at Putitout, Abraham Mueller, CTO of Qriously and Stefano Adamcyck, MD of mobventures, also joined the teams and provided feedback from the industry.

The event was sponsored by Google, Kiip, Orange and Inmobi.