Hertz Alerts Wins Ann Arbor SPARK Connected Vehicle Hackathon

ANN ARBOR, Mich., April 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Ann Arbor SPARK, in collaboration with Redwood City, Calif.-based NestGSV, recently hosted a connected vehicle hackathon. Ann Arbor-based Hertz Alerts won the Hertz challenge track grand prize, an Xbox One Titanfall Bundle, as well as the Ann Arbor grand prize of $10,000 of business acceleration services from Ann Arbor SPARK and a TK1 development kit from NVIDIA.

During the 26-hour event, teams at SPARK Central and NestGSV solved challenges presented by Hertz, AT&T, mojio, and gracenote. The teams from Michigan and California worked head to head via a remote feed.

Sam Harrell and Harrison Steves, the Hertz Alerts developer team, worked through the night to create the award-wining application. They were tasked with using the Hertz application programming interface and iBeacon technology to develop and application to improve a customer's pickup and return experience.  The Hertz Alerts application improves customer interaction with features like automatic check-in.

Other Ann Arbor hackathon winners included a team from Detroit-based Apigee and Jim Barstow of Ann Arbor-based Dynamic Edge. The Apigee team won NVIDIA's shield gaming platform and Jim Barstow won $1,000 cash. University of Michigan Dearborn team Creative Computing Club was awarded "judges choice" for its hackathon efforts.

"Besides providing a collaborative tech event for developers in the region, Ann Arbor SPARK's goals for the hackathon were to make those on the west coast aware of talent in the Ann Arbor region, and to attract California companies to Michigan," explained Paul Krutko, Ann Arbor SPARK president and CEO. "The hackathon was also a great chance to show software developers in Silicon Valley the connected vehicle activity here in Michigan."

NVIDIA and Towersec sponsored the Ann Arbor event. Towersec CEO Saar Dickman, technology executive Roger Jollis, and Michigan eLab co-founder and general partner Doug Neal were volunteer judges in Ann Arbor.

About Ann Arbor SPARK
Ann Arbor SPARK, a non-profit organization, is advancing the region by encouraging and supporting business acceleration, attraction and retention. The organization identifies and meets the needs of business at every stage, from start-ups to large organizations. Ann Arbor SPARK collaborates with business, academic, government, and community investor partners including the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, Washtenaw Community College, Washtenaw County, Livingston County, Washtenaw County Michigan Works!, the City of Ann Arbor, Bank of Ann Arbor and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. For more information, please call (734) 761-9317 or visit www.AnnArborUSA.org.

SOURCE Ann Arbor SPARK

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