Dubai  : Dimension Data has announced the winner of its record-breaking Tour de France-inspired coding competition ‘Le Code to France’, a brand new initiative aimed at engaging its 30,000 global employees and driving innovative ideas that can be implemented during future Tours.

Breaking all internal campaign records in less than a month, Le Code to France combines two of Dimension Data’s technology programmes, its Learn to Code initiative – an internal development scheme to boost employees’ coding skills – and its role as the official technology partner to the A.S.O’s Tour de France.

The winning team comprised of four postgraduates who joined the company in early 2018 as part of Dimension Data’s Graduate Accelerate Programme, their team name: Mark Codendish – named after Team Dimension Data’s illustrious sprint cyclist.

They created a fantasy cycling game to challenge Dimension Data’s machine learning predictor, which is currently being displayed at Dimension Data’s Client Experience Centre (CEC) at the Tour de France. The competition winners will also be flown out for the final stage of the race as part of their prize.

Competition sparks entrants from around the world

Although the competition was originally aimed at engineers and developers within the Dimension Data family, over 120 employees entered; from a one-person team in Taiwan, to groups with marketing, sales and finance backgrounds from Australia, South Africa, the UK, and beyond.

Notable entries included an augmented reality visualisation of each race stage and a chatbot that could answer live questions about what’s happening during a cycling race.

Peter Gray, Senior Director of the Sports Practice – Technology at Dimension Data said, “Le Code to France is a fantastic initiative that allows us to bring a new angle to our employee engagement efforts around the Tour de France.

“It has encouraged colleagues to come together and share ideas from different business units across multiple regions and has been a great way to highlight the innovation running within Dimension Data.”

Member of winning concept Mark Codendish Douglas Waddilove – along with his teammates Alexander Pienaar, Trevan Lott and Nihal Somers – explained the inspiration behind his team’s winning concept: “We saw an opportunity to increase client experiences at the Tour de France through gamification, and came up with an idea which incorporated machine learning.

“Le Code to France gives employees the opportunity to channel their energy into innovating and coming up with a solution which can make a difference and be recognised. Even though our team wasn’t strong in the technical aspect, Le Code to France has inspired a technical drive in each of us.”