Galavate Innovation Challenge 2026

The brief

The problem

A lot of real work in Sarawak runs on a WhatsApp group, an exercise book, a spreadsheet and someone's memory. The kopitiam's orders. The contractor's crew on site. The family shop's credit book. The tuition centre's timetable. The club's event. The kampung committee's collections. Orders, payments, tasks, receipt photos and decisions all go into the same chat, and then they scroll away.

So nobody can see the current state. Was that order paid? Which price did we agree? Who has the keys today? A month later nobody can prove what happened, which is when the argument starts. The people doing the work never asked for an app. Most have tried “a system” before. It cost more effort than WhatsApp, so it was dead by Friday.

The challenge

Find one real group of people who run their work this way. Watch them do it for two weeks, with their permission. Then design the tool they should have had all along: what they see, what they tap, what happens when it goes wrong, and what the record looks like to someone who was not there. Build it if you can.

It does not have to be “an app”. The right answer might be one screen, a bot inside the WhatsApp group, a printed thing plus a phone, or something we have not thought of. It has to be less effort than what they do today, or it will not be used.

Where to lookA family shop, workshop or stall. A contractor's site crew. A tuition centre. A homestay or café. A wedding or event vendor. A delivery or dispatch business. A student club running an event. A kampung or strata committee collecting fees. Pick one you can actually reach: your family's business, your part-time job, the stall you eat at every day.

What to watch for

What the group chat is actually doing

Watch for these five jobs. Most groups do all of them in one chat.

Requests. Orders, bookings, “can you do Tuesday?”
Money. Who paid, who still owes, the screenshot of the transfer.
Tasks. Who is doing what today, and whether it is done.
Proof. Photos of the receipt, the delivery, the finished job.
Decisions. The price that was agreed, the change of plan, the “ok”.

How it fails

Design for these. At least one of them is your failure case.

It scrolls away. Last Tuesday's order is 400 messages up.
Who paid? Transfer screenshots sit between memes and voice notes.
The wrong version. The latest price is three messages above the one everyone read.
The person who left. They leave the group, or the job, and the history goes with them.
No signal. The site, the kampung, the basement car park.
The photo with no context. A receipt, but for which job, and what amount?

The rules of the real world

One hand is usually busy.
Under 30 seconds per interaction. There is rarely time.
The least technical person in the group has to be able to use it.
It must be less effort than WhatsApp, or it dies by Friday.
The record has to convince someone who was not there, six months later.

Entering

What to hand in

A prototype we can try. Clickable is the minimum (Figma or similar). It shows the screens the work depends on and one failure case, designed properly. A working build is welcome and counts for more.
A three-minute video. Walk through the prototype the way the person doing the job would use it.
Two pages from the field. Who you watched, the flow as you saw it, and what it changed in your design.
A five-minute pitch and live demo. Finalists present on 2 December at Good Design Week.

Hand in the first three by Sun 29 Nov, 11:59 pm, through the link we email to registered teams. If more than eight teams enter, we pick the finalists from the hand-ins and tell every team on Mon 30 Nov.

Time commitment

Six weeks, 19 October to 29 November, fitted around classes. Plan on about five hours a week each: two field visits early on, then design, test and build. Three sessions in person at Swinburne Sarawak: the kick-off (about 90 minutes), a check-in at the end of week three (about an hour), and the final.

How we judge

Four questions, equal weight.

Did you design for the person doing the job, or for the screenshot?
Did you design the failure, or only the happy path?
Could a stranger reading the record six months later tell what happened?
Would we ship it?

We judge in the room and we ask questions. How you defend your decisions is part of the score.

Prizes

1stRM1,000

2ndRM600

3rdRM400

Paid to the team, split however you like. Every finalist gets a proper conversation with us about internships and roles; we run this to meet people we would want to work with. The work stays yours. We may show it, with credit, when we talk about the Challenge.

Key dates

Fri 16 Oct: Registration closes, on this page
Week of 19 Oct: Kick-off at Swinburne: the brief, the teams, your questions
Week of 2 Nov: Check-in with Galavate, end of week three
Sun 29 Nov: Hand-in closes, 11:59 pm
Mon 30 Nov: Finalists told, if more than eight teams enter
Wed 2 Dec: Final and awards at Good Design Week, Swinburne Sarawak

How it runs

Open to Swinburne Sarawak students from any school, undergraduate or postgraduate. Teams of up to four. Mixed design, computing and business teams are encouraged, because the best entries need all three. Run by Galavate with the School of Design and Arts and the School of ICT, who host the sessions and the final.

The full call for participation. Everything above, plus a suggested process.

Download the PDF

Register your team

Registration closes Fri 16 Oct. One registration per team, filled in by the team lead. Teams of one to four.

Questions: hello@galavate.com or WhatsApp +60 17 783 8848.

Team name

Team lead

Full name

Swinburne student email

WhatsApp number

Course and year

Other members

Team of 1

About your entry

Do you already have a group in mind? (optional)

How did you hear about it?

One job. Four places. No record.