Welcome back to WittySparks readers! If you remember, our side had earlier featured an article on the 6th edition of “Yahoo! Hack India 2013”. This had created waves with the unexpected participation of over 250 developers from across 20 states to be a part of the much-publicized 24 hour Hackathon! But what happened after that?
Were their creations rewarded? If so, who bagged the top prizes? Let’s find answers to all these questions right here in this article! Before we get to that, let me tell you some amazing facts about the Hackathon.
Would you ever be able to guess that out of the 250 that participated in the event, 8% were women? Most of the submissions in this year’s theme, Mobile and Personalization, were based on Geo locations, science-based apps on sentiment analysis, photo-based apps, and SMSs.
The hackers indulged in a continuous intake of as many as 1500 cups of coffee and tea and 350 cans of Red Bull energy drink during these fantastic creations. Well, we can’t blame them.
I guess this is the minimum requirement of a person who is expected to reach this level of excellence. Let us now take a look at the winners of the prestigious categories of awards, along with a description of their outstanding creations.
Grand Prize is awarded to the best hack overall. This is the hack that the judges are collectively most amazed by. Best Technical Hack is awarded the most technically impressive hack. How much and how well can you build within 24 hours?
Best Potential Product was awarded to the hack that judges can most readily imagine being launched and succeeding as a natural product. Most Creative Ideas went for uniqueness, innovation, creativity, and novelty. This winner elicits an “I’ve never seen that” reaction.natu
And finally, Hackers’ Choice, where every Hacker has the opportunity to vote for their favorite hack, so collectively, every participant helps select one of the winners.
As this remains, let’s get to the names of the achievers and let me also describe to you their unique creations.
The Grand Prize Winner was the PlanMan!, an app that lets you do workflow management through SMS and missed calls. It was developed by Varun Kumar Nagarajan, Arun Kumar Nagarajan, Raghu Ram, and Amit Bharti.
Bachao!, an app that uses the accelerometer in smartphones to track the user’s location in the event of a car accident and sends an alert to their emergency contacts and the ambulance service, took away the award for Most Creative Hack. This Android app was built by the team of Mayank Yadav, Abhijit Sinha, Asmita Metrewar, and Vikalp Handa.
The award for Best Technical Hack went to the team of Sagar Pandey, Rohan Prinja, Shahid Khan, and Ahamed Salim. They developed the Train Tracker app, which gives users real-time train information based on PNR number, including the next stop, time to reach the destination, train status, and weather forecast of the upcoming station.
The iCity app was chosen as the Best Potential Product. Developed by Yogesh Joshi and Dinesh Salve, the iOS app gives users basic information about the city users are visiting, like the weather forecast, public transport, city hospitals, hotels, and restaurants.
The Hackers Choice Award went to AI Finance, an app that uses artificial intelligence to predict the upcoming stock values, developed by Abhimitra Kartikeya Surabhi, Rakesh Tadisetty, Amit Kumar Tiwari, and Sudheesh Singanamalla. So congratulations, winners! I hope you reach new heights next year!
