As far as apps go, Halification and Farm To Table have little in common – except that they were both crowned winners at tech competitions in Nova Scotia this weekend.

Halification, which alerts people with public notices in the Halifax area, won two categories in the first Apps4Halifax competition,  capturing $12,000 in prize money. Developers Majd Hussini and Sam Jawich of Bedford received gold awards for the Your City and Go Green categories.

Meanwhile, in Wolfville, a team called Farm To Table, which developed an interactive mapping application that helps people find produce or tourism experiences from farms, won the first F5://Food event at Acadia University.

The two competitions highlight efforts to push the capacity for tech development into new corners of the economy. Apps4Halifax (in which I served as a judge) allotted several months to developers to come up with an app that uses public data released by the Halifax Regional Municipality.

F5://Food is like a startup weekend that bridges the tech and agricultural communities. It was inspired by food-orientated hackathons in the U.S., and follows the basic hackathon format. People pitch ideas on a Friday and teams spend an entire weekend trying to put together businesses over 48 hours.

On a broader scheme, F5://Food was in keeping with the larger effort to use startup methodology to develop opportunity in agriculture and other resource-based industries – a field in which Acadia is taking a lead in Nova Scotia.

F5://Food attracted 35 participants from around the Annapolis valley, who deliberated over 17 ideas and eventually divided into five teams.

In the end, the committee of judges selected Farm To Table as the winner.  The app is a geographic information system-based application that allows people to explore the rural landscape for agricultural and ag-tourism opportunities.

“They’re really quite jazzed,” said organizer Mike Caplan shortly after meeting with the team. “They have every intention of moving this project forward.”

Caplan said about 60 people attended the final pitches on Sunday, and the votes for the People’s Choice award almost ended in a five-way tie. In the end the prize was divided between three teams: tReecreate, an online apple breeding network; Mash, a cooking app that helps people choose a menu based on the time, ingredients and equipment they have on hand; and Grassroutes Network, a food distribution service that Caplan described as Rideshare for farmers.

Caplan, the founder of Refresh Annapolis Valley, a new media professional association that helps grow the Valley’s tech industry, said the participants we mostly from the food community, but they were joined by several techies, including a group from Horton High School in Wolfville.

“It was a tremendous opportunity to build relations with [the agricultural community] and foodies and chefs … who haven’t had an opportunity to sit down with people in the new media space to hash out some of these ideas,” said Caplan.

The winners by category of Apps4 Halifax were

Your City category

Gold: Halification, submitted by Majd Hussini

Silver: Halifax Crime Map, submitted by David Hamp-Gonsalves

Bronze: Hike Halifax, submitted by Hurlbz (Adam, Steve, Andrew)

Student: Historic HaliTour, submitted by Jeremy Tupper

People’s Choice: Halification submitted by Majd Hussini

Go Green category

Gold: Halification, submitted by Majd Hussini

Silver: Halifax Waste Collection, submitted by Steve Boutilier

Bronze: Parku, submitted by JustUs League

Student: Eco Guru, submitted by Lakshmi Venkatesan

People’s Choice: Halification submitted by Majd Hussini.

Live It Up category

Gold: Smiliest, submitted by Jenny Hastings-James

Silver: Historic Halitour, submitted by Jeremy Tupper

Bronze: (tie) Stroll Halifax, submitted by Colibri Software, and Halifax Parks, submitted by Kris Luttmer

Student: Historic Halitour, submitted by Jeremy Tupper

People’s Choice: Halifax Explorer, submitted by Jerome Pelletier

Keep ’er Movin’ category

Gold: Halifax Traffic, submitted by Kris Luttmer

Silver: KNOWtime Transit App, submitted by KNOWtime Commuter Technology Development

Bronze: Transit360 submitted by MindSea Development Inc.

Student: Easy Halifax Transit submitted by Jeremy Tupper

People’s Choice: Halifax Explorer submitted by Jerome Pelletier

ESRI Canada Maps in Apps Student Challenge Winners

HFX Next Bus, submitted by Tyler Pachal

Know It All, submitted by Jerome Pelletier

Historic HaliTour, submitted by Jeremy Tupper

ESRI Canada Maps in Apps Startup Challenge Winner

Hike Halifax, submitted by Hurlbz