Supermarket NFC app king of the Create 32 hackathon

By Wenlei Ma | 19 August 2013
 
Winners Saikat Islam and Shaila Pervin with Samsung's Luke Steele.

A seamless shopping app for supermarkets has taken the top prize at Visual Jazz Isobar’s Create 32 hackathon over the weekend. Coles and Woolies take note; this is how brands can utilise NFC technology to enhance the grocery experience.

The winning husband and wife team, Monash IT PhD student Shaila Pervin and software developer Saikat Islam, impressed the judges with their TapXpress NFC-enabled prototype, which was designed to improve the in-store supermarket shopping experience. Pervin and Islam won $12,000.

The prototype incorporates elements of at-home smart shopping lists which learn from previous shopping trips, NFC-enabled tags around the store, an in-store journey which organises your list based on aisle location, targeted advertising based on preferences and behaviour, promotional discounts and storing all of a customer’s loyalty information.

As with many great ideas, the team’s came from its own personal experience. “A week ago we were at a friend’s party and we had just come back from shopping. We were finding it difficult to find a lot of the products we saw and we just thought about how NFC can make that a better experience,” said Islam.

Pervin and Islam said they’re not going to splash their winnings but instead will set it aside towards bringing their prototype to life. Pervin told AdNews: “We were talking about it before, that whether we won or not, we’re going to take TapXpress forward. We’ll fine tune the product and we’ll try and find some investors and approach the supermarkets. We are migrants here and we were thinking about how we might be able to start something and this could be what we were looking for.”

Islam echoed his wife’s sentiments and added the two had received very positive feedback from people they spoke to about their idea. “I think Australia is the land of opportunity. There are so many people who said ‘You should go forward with this’. It was inspiring. It’s really good to be somewhere where you can have an idea and people appreciate it.”

Visual Jazz Isobar’s Create 32 hackathon took place over the weekend from Saturday morning until Sunday night. Seventy-two participants registered and all 22 teams presented at the end of the session to a judging panel with representatives from Samsung, Jetstar, JB Hifi, Dulux, Isobar Singapore and Vizeum. More than a handful of teams stayed throughout the night to work on their prototypes. It was held at York Butter Factory in Melbourne, a hub for entrepreneurs and start-ups.

Teams had been briefed to create a working prototype using NFC technology which will solve an existing problem and could be commercialised. Participants ranged from students to fully-formed companies in the software development sector.

While not present in iOS devices, NFC penetration is fast on the rise as Android devices overtook Apple in market share in Australia and around the world. There are estimates 30% of smartphone devices will have NFC in Australia by the end of the year.

“I can honestly say I was really surprised at the high standard of work, ideas and innovation this weekend,” said Jetstar group marketing manager, PR and sponsorship Ingrid Nason. “I think we’re now learning about NFC at Jetstar and there are a handful of projects we’re working on in that space. It really is an exciting new area and a really great way of personalising customer experience and inventing customer experiences through innovation.”

“Events like this are a great way to give these guys a forum to actually come and present it to a meaningful audience, and the recognition and award money will hopefully take it to the next level,” she added.

Visual Jazz Isobar managing director Konrad Spilva said: “I was really surprised by the level of quality of all the prototypes. I think 90% of the ideas and prototypes presented could’ve been commercialised. All three finalists were very impressive and had that ‘I would use that’ factor. The winning entry in particular. I was talking to some pretty fussy developers and they were in agreement that was probably one of the best in terms of the idea.”

Second place last night went to start-up company Amectronix which developed a NFC-centred program to track university student attendance which could also be used for managing energy use. Third place was won by La Trobe University students Nick Waywood, Alex Crompton and Chris Francis and their team’s fitness app for gyms.

Sponsors for the event included Samsung, Jetstar, JB Hifi, Dulux, Adshel, Vizeum and Posterscope. AdNews was the media partner.

For a behind-the-scenes look at Create 32, pick up a copy of this week’s AdNews on Friday in print and on iPad.

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