Innovative Apps Attracts Interest and Win Attractive Prizes at Hackathon

July 19, 2012 - PRLog -- Bengaluru, Monday, July 16th, 2012: The 36-hour Hacking Marathon, Hackathon, came to a close last evening with developers creating over 200 innovative apps, of which the best ten apps were shortlisted and presented. The 55444 Hackathon was organized by Innoz, the young and exciting venture on mobile and wireless innovation, at their headquarters at Koramangala, Bangalore, to foster hacking culture and bring together hackers from all walks of life to collectively build meaningful apps on 55444.

Participated by over 100 developers from various cities, Hackathon was a first of a kind experiment to show how innovators can use a SMS platform to develop amazing applications for the masses.  The hacking marathon continued on till Sunday, July 15.

The final day presentation kicked off at 5pm on Sunday, July 15 and included some very interesting ideas that were not only innovative and creative but also very helpful and handy to the users. Some of the short listed apps included “#Expense,” an app that allows you to text your expenditures as and when they occur to the 55444 platform automatically storing the data on an online database, “#mmony,” an app allowing users to access the matrimonial database via sms amongst others. #mmony apps which can be ported to the blackberry app, was one of two recipients of a smart phone sponsored by Blackberry.

Li2 Innovations a robotics company, who also participated at the Hackathon as a group entry, came forward and presented their project. A device that monitors the patient’s heart beat was programmed to send a sms alert using the 55444 platform to the nearest hospital or doctor in case of any irregularities in the patient’s heart beats. The project was aptly named Less 3 which if put into symbols shows a heart like so < 3.

However the final four apps which won the prizes included: #Happ and #Bunk log, both selected as the winners and #Cipher and #Awsum being selected for the second place.

The winning app, #Happ is an app that allows its user to search for apps within the apps store. The user just needs to text in the category or the type of app they are looking for and will get the responses with all the options available. # Bunk log as the name suggests is an app for college students to help them keep a track of the number of classes they have attended or bunked. With strict minimum requirement attendance rules in most colleges, this app would work wonders for the students.

The apps that came second, #Cipher is an app that allows users to encrypt their messages for complete privacy, very useful when confidential information needs to be exchanged via sms and #Awsum is an app to help bring social networking via sms, especially great to use with college or school campuses.

Sharing his views, Deepak Ravindran, CEO Innoz said, “I was amazed by some of the ideas presented here today. The best thing about the apps presented was that they all addressed a particular need and proved to be useful if ever materialized. This is just the beginning; we look forward to conducting more such Hackathons in other metros and slowly developing the hacking culture across India.”

Deepak also went on to say “The source of bright ideas never have a limit, Lakshmi Pratury’s son Arnav who is only 9 years old, looks at me and says “we should have an app that gives us easy access to game cheat codes”. So you see age is no limit at this hackathon”

Shashank Shandiya, the developer of the winning app #Happ shared, “I never thought that I would win. I had initially created 3 to 4 apps but none of them seemed to be working out. After interacting with more developers and sharing ideas I finally got a solid idea I could use. This feels just awesome.”

The Hackathon also aimed at bringing together some of the renowned names in the industry to share their views and thoughts. The top key-note speakers that addressed the audience included Pradeep Rao from Blackberry; Kalyan Varma, Ink Fellow; Zubin Dubash, Onward Mobility; Sean Blagsvedt, babajob.com; Anupam Mukherji, The Fake IPL Player and Bharti Jacob, from Seedfund.

The final day of the Hackathon also witnessed a presentation by Lakshmi Pratury, the woman responsible for bringing TED to India and was also one of the judges responsible for the selecting the best four apps.

Sharing his thoughts as a guest at the event Mr. Anupam Mukerji, The Fake IPL Player Co-Founder Pitch Invasion said “I’m very optimistic about the space for mobile phone applications. Information readily available on phones break the glass wall of technology. Events such as these (Hackathons) makes people more aware of what’s available in the markets,”

Registrations began early at 10 am on Saturday, July 14 followed by 36 hours of pure coding joy for the techies. The participants experienced keynote addresses from eminent names in the Industry; a rock performance by Lagori and also gained extra knowledge, ideas, new friends and memories to take home with them.

About Innoz:
Innoz was among the Global 100 most promising technology companies awarded by prestigious RED Herring Magazine. Innoz runs the largest offline mobile search engine 55444 with more than 10 million users and counting. It is not another search medium on the phone, rather than searching for it online it provides the user with actual answers to their queries. The goal of Innoz is to give people more reasons to smile by their innovations, as they believe that this leads to positive things in the world.

For further media queries, please contact RED Communications, Saleela Kappan/Nathanielle Kumar at 99801-88938/97399-61733