PyCon is the largest annual gathering for the community using and developing the open-source Python programming language. HyperTrack decided to be a part of PyCon India 17 as a Platinum sponsor. We were very excited to be a part of PyCon. In this two-day event, we aimed to build relationships with the Python developer community, organise a hackathon with HyperTrack APIs and introduce developers to the power of our stack.
On the first day of PyCon, we reached the venue early and set up the HyperTrack booth. We saw great enthusiasm from participants at the booth. We had a fun and busy time answering great questions about HyperTrack and our technology stack throughout the conference.
The HyperTrack hackathon started at 2pm. We announced attractive cash prizes for winning teams that would come up with and execute the best ideas. The problem statement given to the team was 'build anything you can imagine with location using HyperTrack'. 37 teams registered for the hackathon. Among 37, 12 teams were able to complete their hacks. We were surprised to see the innovative hacks using HyperTrack that the teams came up with. We really appreciate the efforts put by the hackathon participants who worked really hard for 24 hours straight.
Some hacks that we thought were the best and hence the winners were:
Peace
Most of the traditional todo apps need a lot of context to work properly e.g. adding time, location and other information. Nishant and Himanshu from IIT Kharagpur created an intelligent todo app to solve this problem. If a user has a todo list item to buy a medicine, then their app automatically suggests the nearest medical store based on the user location. They used keyword extraction, named entity recognition to identify the task contents and then used HyperTrack to track the user's location. Once they get the task contents and user location, they notify the user about the relevant places of interest in the neighborhood. Team Peace's presentation can be found here. And their code can be viewed here.
Geekhaven
Nikhil, Gautham and Himanshu from IIIT Allahabad built an app that helps users automatically perform certain actions based on geofence triggers. We often ask our loved ones to call or message us once they reach a particular location. For example, I generally ask my friends to message me when they reach home after a party. This app automates the process of sending message, missed call and other actions based on whether a user has entered or exited a geofence.
zo.ai
The app helps people connect with relevant people in confereneces and exhibitions. An organiser can upload data of people who register for the event. When somebody logins in the app, their conferences are listed. Once they are in the conference area they can open up the conference card (using HyperTrack's geofence) and lookup people.
Thanks for a fantastic turn out at the HyperTrack hackathon at Pycon. We look forward to meeting you again at a future event and learn more about what you imagine building with location. Until then!
