Hackathon awards developers in proximity based technologies
11 December, 2015
category: NFC
The spread of mobile is driving demand for creative mash-ups of proximity-based technologies. That’s why tech incubator AccelerateNFC and proximity ID company Flomio created TrackHack: The Proximity ID Hackathon.
TrackHack is a first-of-its-kind event focused solely on the proximity ID technologies that power the Internet of Things – radio frequency identification, Bluetooth Low Energy, and near field communication.
The hackathon was held November 20 – 22 in London. Organizers call it “an event where hackers and developers can access all proximity ID tech and do what they do best — create, innovate and disrupt.”
Eleven teams submitted identity-related entries. Projects included simplifying management of contacts, keeping track of luggage while traveling, and reducing electronic waste. “The tech used in the award winning applications included NXP, HID, OmniID and UGrokIt – which provided a nice mix between NFC, RFID and Bluetooth beacon tech,” says Robert P. Sabella, founder of NFC Bootcamp and AccelerateNFC. “Projects also included wristband identity solutions for event check-in and payments, and injectable chips to enable identification and payments via the tap of a human hand.”
The hackathon brought together experts in development, software/hardware, technology standards, and marketing. Sabella says developers were given a real world perspective in creating solutions and understanding the process of rolling out a new solution “from ideation to development to implementation.” But there’s a learning curve on how to effectively integrate proximity hardware into a web application. So for future events, organizers hope to seed developers’ ideas with current use cases and give them examples of sample code in advance.
“A lot of people today are talking about the Internet of Things. There are ‘connected’ cars, wine bottles, clothing, appliances, jewelry, movie posters, games and toys. Just about any product you can think of can be connected to the digital world in some way,” Sabella says. “We are creating the next stage of the IoT journey. We are already planning our next TrackHack.” It will be held March 11-13, 2016 in Austin, Texas, during South by Southwest.
