Pitney Bowes, a global technology company that provides commerce solutions in the areas of ecommerce, shipping, mailing, and financial services, has announced the winners of the Pitney Bowes Shipping Hackathon 2019 that took place on 28 September 2019.
This technology hackathon connected more than 500,000 global developers to create innovative solutions that remove complexity from Shipping and Mailing Operations for businesses. The company has selected three winners from the 176 submissions, in addition to two special prizes given by hackathon partners, Shyplite and Freshworks.
The winners of the Pitney Bowes Shipping Hackathon 2019 are:
1. Measurement App: The first prize is awarded to Shyam Barange of Augmented Reality startup, GetIntoAR, for the application that uses ARCore technology to measure parcel dimensions and recommend the optimal package type for shipment. The application helps businesses save shipping cost based on its recommendations.
2. Accessible User Experience: The second prize is awarded to Aparna Singhal for making Pitney Bowes SendPro products accessible to visually impaired clients with this unique feature.
3. QR Code for Shipment Package: The third prize is awarded to Neel Kukreti and Yugandhar Tripathi from the Jaypee Institute of Technology. The application is a QR Code scanner for shipping labels that overlays recipient information using augmented reality.
Special prize by Shyplite: Awarded to Udit Kumar, a developer from Bharati Vidyapeeth’s College of Engineering, who created the application, GodPost, a secured and intelligent shipping method using Blockchain Technology.
Special prize for most innovative application using Freshworks APIs: A voice supported shipping bot application that enhances customer experience, created by the team from Kevit Technologies (Hemang Kothari, HarpalSingh Gohil, Amit Bhimani) is awarded this special prize from Freshworks.
The Hackathon invited developers and startups to build intelligent working applications on themes – Seamless and Intelligent Shipping, Business Productivity and Open Innovation – for 750,000 Pitney Bowes clients to get access to modern mailing and shipping capabilities.
The hackathon was organised in partnership with technology partners, Freshworks, Postmates, Algorithmia and Industry Partner, Shyplite. Developers had access to APIs from these technology partners and Google Cloud credits to work on their ideas.
They also received key insights on the Pitney Bowes Business and APIs, Algorithmia, and the AI Marketplace from the Pitney Bowes – Algorithmia joint webinar.
The event received 1430 registrations and 176 application submissions. The applications were judged based on their business potential, user experience and technical complexity.
Manish Choudhary, Senior Vice President, Global Products and Strategy, Sending Technology Solutions at Pitney Bowes said, “The Pitney Bowes Shipping Hackathon is a platform for global innovators to develop ideas to accelerate digital transformation not just within Pitney Bowes but for our clients as well”.
