We participated in the Android Developer Days in Ankara, held between June 14 – 15th at the Middle East Technical University Congress and Culture Center. Qualcomm and Turkcell were the main sponsors, with many other ICT companies.
The Android Community from Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir were present and the international speakers gave some interesting insigths. During the event, mobile applications and technologies were discussed either with projects or key-note speakers. Apps and techs were also displayed in the stands at the conference hall.
Besides the discussoins on new technology use and development, the most critical question was: “What after development?” The developers need platforms to convert their apps into business. One of the speakers Kamal Hassan, CEO of i360accelerator.com, and Turn8 gave examples by explaining how to accelerate the way from Developer to Entrepreneur.
Ecahack Hackathon as a part of the event started on the evening of the 14th where 18 developers made up 12 teams selected from 150 applicants. As TAGES team we have participated as a collaborator by proposing CitySDK APIs to the 18 developers. Nevertheless the hackathon did not have any rules or conditions on using APIs or open data. The main criteria was;
- Android apps can be in the field of Social Responsibility or any other field that developers would like to develop about.
- It is expected that Android apps developed in the field of Social responsibility should be a solution for easing life for disabled people, women, environment, health, violence, etc.
- Jury will choose winners according to the criteria: creativity, software quality, usability.
- Android App to be developed from scratch in 24 hours.
- Pre-written codes should not been used.
- All of the code should be written within the scope of Android Hackathon.
- Participants can use any third party library or source code etc.
CitySDK APIs were introduced to the developers to be used during the hackathon. At the opening of the hackathon we have explained about the CitySDK Project and the purpose of the APIs by distributing a practical user manual cards to the developers. Some of the developers were interested in developing the current APIs but not during the hackathon, some were interested in the hackathon that we are going to organize on November 1 – 3, 2013 with the Istanbul Transport Data and CitySDK APIs.
The next day, in the afternoon all teams presented the android applications they developed. The applications were:
- Çipetpet – An Ant Game (First Prize)
- Crowt – Merged Location Based Social Media Tools for Places (Second Prize)
- Folo – Social Tracking and Communicating by Region on Map (Third Prize)
- Sign Language – Interpreting the Sign Language with Video (Special Prize)
- Panic Button – Panic Button for the Women in Harassment
- Mahallem – Information Sharing by NFCs at the same District
- TV Widget – Controls Google TV
- Otodroid – Car Maintenance and Service Notice
- Traffic Lamps Game – An Education Game for Children on Traffic Lamps
The developers were not used to develop Smart City applications and since there is no any open data around, their focus was much more on the problem solving or games. Nevertheless, this potential will bring many applications in the Hackathon that we are going to organize in November 1st – 3rd 2013 in Istanbul. Register now at hackathonist.eventbrite.com