AT&T Mobile App Hackathon – Boston

We just wrapped up an excellent weekend on the MIT campus in conjunction with the MIT Sloan Business Club. All told, there were around 82+ developers that came out to test out new tools and make some new friends. Over the last 24 hours these hyper focused developers pumped out 15 applications and there were even a number of newbie developers that pulled a lot of weight to get their applcation going. 

We also had a tandem test event run in London with the help from some of our hackathon partners that drew in around 60+ developers. You can watch the recording of the Boston and London presentations here: http://ustream.tv/channel/hackthehackathon

A big thanks goes out to our local contacts, Angela and Steve, for helping promote/coordinate the event as well as Sphero and Apigee for participating. The grad students at MIT were also quite intriued by the Sphero robotic ball as a couple of participants were from the robotics department. Additionally, one of the grad students was McLuvin’ the Apigee APIs becuase he had build a mobile app from scratch last year and would have saved a ton of time if he had known about the Apigee APIs. 

If you are interested in pictures, please check out our Facebook pictures page and/or email me (alex.donn@att.com) images that you may have!

Moving on to the teams that presented, here they are in no particular order:

Latte Locator – Whether you’re a jetsetter or a homebody, you can invite every single friend on every single social network you have to a nearby in seconds!

partyevent – Want a cool way to create an event, track attendees, and have a means to interact with door prizes. This application will allow you to create events allow attendees to register and download a passbook pass directly to their IOS 6 device. Once added to your passbook, the pass will give you access to the event (party, store event) and will also give you a chance to win a door prize with a “Golden Ticket”. At the door there is an IOS device that will scan the pass and check to see if that pass has the magic (Golden Ticket) number that will change the Sphero from Green to Red and make it move. http://www.charlesroy.com/hackathon

DJ Sphero – Orbotix Sphero Prize – Eric Chang, Nicolas Tejera, Nikita Rodichenko, & Raluca Ifrim – An interactive table-top music-playing application. Hang out with your friends and play some live music using your tablet, phone, or sphero as instruments. Also use some background loops or play along to your favorite music. Various music themes available: African instruments, Jazz band, Hard rock, Hip-Hop, Reggae, and more. Some of them are available for free with the initial download, and some may be purchased from inside the app.

Helpy.co – Helpy is a video based customer service solution to help m-commerce companies to increase their conversion rates on their tablet applications. Consumers video chat with representatives for their questions on products & complete their transaction on a tablet application.

FoodPong – 2nd Place Prize & Apigee Prize – Waiting in line for food sucks. But it doesn’t only suck for customers, it sucks for restaurants too: they have to hire more labor, work harder for lower customer satisfaction. Current ordering applications complicate the problem by allowing for exogenous spikes in demand with unpredictable pick-up times. Enter FoodPong:FoodPong helps restaurant owners manage their capacity and customer satisfaction by offering discounts to change consumer behavior. It also allows them to satisfy customers by giving them ‘freebies’ when service is below customary levels. 

Mobile Patient Monitoring – Patient fall rates across the United States continue to escalate, putting patients and caregivers at increasing risk. Up to 50% of hospitalized patients are at risk for falls, and almost half of those who fall suffer an injury. While falls have a tremendous impact on the patient, they also directly affect a healthcare costs. The average hospital stay for patients who fall is 12.3 days longer, and injuries from falls lead to a 61% increase in patient-care costs. Furthermore, the low sensitivity level of currently products exacerbates caregivers “alarm fatigue” thus leading to disuse and misuse.

Using mobile and kinect technology we have created a cutting edge solution!!!”

baller – Imagine a world where you didn’t have to touch someone’s computer at house party to change their horrendous music… By using the intuitive 3d-gestural controls of the sphero, now you can! and it looks BALLER

spontanier – Have you been in the situation where you wanted to do something but you didn’t have anyone to do it with? We have a solution for you: Spontanier. The easiest way to plan real time social activities.

MockPI – Honorable Mention – MockPI is a web application built for developers who build API-based applications of all types. It enables you to prototype your application faster.

OpenIR – GWOB Prize – Developing new ways to interpret IR data and integrate crowdmapping

Relay – 1st Place Prize – Jihyun Kim, Terrence Fradet, & Andres Colubri – This mobile app allows people to express themselves in public spaces by creating art in augmented reality. The broader goal is to start a conversation about how we appropriate our common space.

Boston Volunteers App – 3rd Place Prize – Olivier Eeckhoutte & 3 other people – Is an app that seeks to inspire people to volunteer through technology.

SignAway – Away with sign-in/sign-up sheets

IdeaOverflow – A way for developers to post, discover and collaborate on projects and ideas.