Simple technologies are the ones that always leave a mark. This is the motto of over 100 developers who have come to the city to participate in the 36 hour-long hackathon. These developers are exploring the SMS platform promising to deliver some outstanding technologies.
“According to the statistics, 10 crore people have access to internet in India, but 90 crore people have mobile phones with the SMS feature. SMS platform is estimated to grow tremendously in the next few years,” explained Co-Founder of Innoz Mohammad Hisamuddin. Innoz, a mobile and wireless technology start-up, has organised this contest.
For developer Gaurav Chandrashekhar, his winning idea has been live for over two weeks now. “I heard about this from my close friend. I have developed an app which helps people get the latest city-specific fuel prices updated with all the changes. One has to send an SMS to a particular number and they will get the fuel prices,” Gaurav explained.
Jayadeep S, a first year Computer Science student from Kerala, on the other hand has exploited the social aspect in his application.
“I am building an app that helps people get a database of blood donors from in respective areas. This database will have the blood group of people with contact numbers. There are some even more complicated apps being developed here, but I think I stand a chance to win,” he said.
However, the idea that seemed to impress many came from John S Perayil, a third year Engineering student from Cochin.
“My app deals with text message encryption. Sometimes, people do not want their friends or anyone else to read their SMSes. This app will help people protect their sensitive information by encoding their message. Only the user will have the unique key which decodes the message. It is a simple, useful and easy to access app and I’m sure it would interest many people,” he said.
Impressed by the work of the developers at the hackathon, Canada’s Research in Motion (RIM) company has opened the doors for developers to work with the it and provide their technologies.
“It is very exciting to have one of the leading companies encouraging us on and helping us explore our creativity to match their standards,” said a participant at the event. Pradeep Rao from Blackberry, Kalyan Varma from Ink Fellow, Zubin Dubash from Onward Mobility and Sean Blagsvedt from babajobs.com spoke about their experience.