The results are in: rapidBizApps’s {iOS, Android} Hackathon generates fresh ideas + jobs

SAN JOSE, Calif. - June 14, 2013 - PRLog -- rapidBizApps’ May 2013 Hackathon conducted in collaboration with Mobbisys, Hyderabad, drew a crowd of highly talented iOS and Android Developers, 30 kilos of Hyderabadi chicken dum biryani and veggie dum biryani and many bleary eyes.

The purpose of the event was to get smart App Developers, UX designers, and Graphics Designers to work together to pitch ideas and build apps. 26 developers competed in the day long event that started at 9:00 am at Mobbisys’s Ameerpet offices.

The grand prize winner, Ganapathi Garre, created an app that automatically switched a user’s mobile profile based on the user’s location using the device’s GPS. “The genesis of the idea came when I kept hearing cell phones ringing in cinema theatres. I thought – why not build an app so the user phone can automatically switch from a ‘full volume’ when outdoors or at home to ‘vibrate only’ when in a theatre to ‘vibrate + low volume’ when in the office.”

The best ideas come from trying to solve personal pain points. Phanindra Sama founded RedBus when he had trouble getting bus tickets to go back home. Most of the 20 project ideas came from trying to solve personal pain points. Ravindra Guntaka, Sr. Developer at rapidBizApps and a hackathon judge said he liked the voice2PDF app built by Sujit and Vinod. Ajay Koppisetty, another judge really liked Srikanth’s concept that solved a use case where a parent can monitor the location of their kids when the parent calls the kid.

“Hackathons and Innovation Tournaments are part of rapidBizApps’s DNA” says CEO Satish Penmetsa. “We value innovation and we recognize that the best ideas come when exceptionally talented people come together and focus on common problems. I experienced this first hand at a class taught by Prof. Karl Ulrich at Wharton. Essentially, groups of really smart, highly motivated people are significantly more likely to come up with brilliant, elegant solutions to problems. This is why IDEO, one of the most widely respected design companies, Apple and Google are so successful. We at rapidBizApps have built a similar infrastructure to attract, nurture and challenge some of the best and brightest mind to experiment and create the next set of innovative apps. Some of our best innovations: the rapidFormFactory, rapidSyncEngine, insuranceAgentCRM, smartE-PBX have all come out of these internal Hackathons. And, this is the primary reason we continue to run these Hackathons”

“We started the company with two fundamental principles” says Krishna Kunam, CTO of rapidBizApps who also built his first app when the first iPhone came out in 2007 “Simplicity: It should be easy enough for my dad to use whatever we build. Freedom: Our employees should have the freedom and flexibility to design and build these simple solutions. We trust our employees to do the right thing. Over the past two and a half years, our employees have almost always exceeded our already high expectations”

Krishna also notes that India has some of the smartest people in the world. More than half of the engineers at Facebook, Yahoo, Google, and Apple in the US are Indians “and the right place to find the talent to build the next generation of products is right here, in India. And, we are planning to add another 30 sharp app developers over then next 2 months. We plan to conduct Hackathons all around India – at Colleges and at Training Institutes. Mobbisys has been an excellent training partner. I think they do a fantastic job of training well rounded, smart App developers” he added.

“We hire very highly motivated, smart problem solvers who are able to build radically different products. It is one of the reasons why our hiring process is also very different. We don’t care as much about what you already know – we care more about what you can do” noted Parmesh Bayappu, an Engineering Director at rapidBizApps. Ravindra Guntaka, a 5 year technology veteran, agreed “It was the first company where they gave us problems to solve using a software language of our choice with full access to the internet even before coming for an onsite interview. And they repeated that with additional problems onsite, with full access to the internet. They do things differently at rapidBizApps. I’m glad I am part of the team now”

rapidBizApps is organizing regular hackathons at colleges, training institutes, and at rapidBizApps’ headquarters in Madhapur, Hyderabad. “We are always looking towards partnering with the best colleges and large companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook to organize these hackathons. Please get in touch with us at love2hack@rapidBizApps.com to partner with us in organizing a hackathon at your college or training institute.”  

About rapidBizApps:

rapidBizApps prides itself in building simple, intuitive and reliable apps out of their offices in the San Jose, California, USA and Madhapur (Near Image Gardens Function Hall), Hyderabad, India. Come join us for our ‘Fun@5 on Fridays’ to experience our can-do culture. BTW, we are also looking for exceptional iOS and Android programmers – if you think you fit the bill, shoot us your resume to jobs@rapidBizApps.com. Learn more about all the bleeding edge technologies and solutions we are working on at http://www.rapidBizApps.com