#scooptrail2017 was a tech based amazing race held by the Singapore National Co-operative Federation (SNCF) in partnership with the Singapore CyberSports and Online Gaming Association (SCOGA), NTUC LearningHub, Niantic and the Ingress community on the 11th of March at Northlight School Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society. Ingress is a location-based, augmented-reality mobile game developed by Niantic (owner of pokemon-GO), a company spun off from Google.
Scoop Trail was held to inspire the youth of today to do well, do good and to increase interest about co-operatives among the millennials. At the same time, it was also an opportunity for co-operatives to witness the potential and importance of technology.
Preparation for Scoop Trail 2017 started a year and a half ago and it eventually evolved into a tech-based amazing race during the last 8 months of preparation. It was the most popular and largest scale to date, with a total of 245 participants and 37 volunteers(including 12 students from Northlight School multi-purpose co-operative). This was also the first time that the race was open to the public with the open category! Historical sites of co-operatives (eg. Odeon Towers) were also incorporated into the race for participants to learn about the history of co-operatives. There were also more prizes (10 social media prizes for the most creative posts on instagram) and customized goodies given out!
Team Secret Fetish showing how excited they were for Scoop Trail 2017
Participants were actively posting about their preparation for Scoop Trail even before the race started on Instagram, in order to compete for the social media prizes consisting of cash, vouchers and 100 PLUS products. We were trending on Instagram during the race and we even tripled the total number of instagram posts by participants this year! Check out #scooptrail2017 to see how much fun the participants had!
Mr Kwek Kok Kwong, SNCF Chairman, excitedly flagging off participants in his first Scoop Trail
Through the use of Ingress, participants first used the Ingress scanner to scan a QR code to access a pdf file.They then proceeded to hack through 5 portals by answering quizzes before ending up at a Co-operative related location. Participants were also required to complete a social media task to complete the mission.
An excited participant attempting to complete one of the social media task
Besides the race event,there was also an exclusive “Find the Klue” event in the open category. Participants who found the hidden Klue cards were awarded the Klue cards by Hilda Leung, Asia-Pacific Community Manager from Niantic.
After completing the race and while waiting for the prize presentation to start, participants were also able to take awesome pictures with their friends at the photobooth!
Picture taken at the photobooth
Team WeAreYoung was the eventual champion of the youth category. They walked away with a total of $1000 cash and $1000 worth of Capitaland vouchers. As for the open category, Team Thudersmurf was the eventual champion and they won powerbanks and t-shirts! Besides the prizes listed above, the top 3 teams of each category were also presented with trophies.
After the race, we had an interview with the youth category champion, Team WeAreYoung. The team consists of Tristan Chua, Ryan Tiew, Jonathan Nee, Syron Ng and Chu Phuong Anh. They were mainly full time national servicemen and Singapore Management University (SMU) students. During the interview, they mentioned that they had to travel a long distance and that the race was both mentally and physically challenging. However, it was still a worthy experience despite the rain. To quote Anh, “It was interesting to visit places that I would not normally go to. It was also a refreshing experience to learn about co-operatives as this is not something that we are usually exposed to.”
Mr Kwek Kok Kwong, SNCF Chairman presenting the trophies and cheque to Team WeAreYoung
Group picture of prize winners with Ms Hilda Leung, Asia-Pacific Community Manager from Niantic, Mrs Dolly Goh, SNCF CEO and Mr Kwek Kok Kwong, SNCF Chairman
All in all, it was an engaging and joyous day for participants to hang out with their friends and learn about co-operatives at the same time. SNCF would like to thank all partners, volunteers, staff and participants for making Scoop Trail 2017 a fun and successful event!