Goibibo launches hackathon for building innovative apps around travel

The focus of the hackathon is to encourage developers to build innovative apps using travel API’s on the five themes – itinerary planning, event planning, collaborative planning, exploring hotels and personalization (in which the app tunes itself to the needs of the individual customer). The apps can be built for web, mobile, tablet and desktop. The hackathon has seen over 4500 participants for its online version. Twenty applications will be selected for the offline hackathon. Three winners will receive cash prizes worth up to 5 lakhs.

The hackathon is being conducted in two phases; the first phase (September 18th to September 28th) saw more than 4500 developers participate in the online hackathon. These teams will be evaluated by Goibibo and the top 20 apps will be shortlisted. The second phase of the hackathon, which will be offline, is scheduled for October 17th and 18th. The event will happen in Bangalore, where the teams will get to work on and present their application in front of a panel of judges. The winner takes home INR 3 Lakhs, first runner-up will receive INR 1.5 Lakhs and the thirs will take away INR 75,000.

Talking about the Go-Code hackathon, Ashish Kashyap, founder & CEO IbiboGroup said, “We think of Goibibo as an ecosystem that enables innovation. We are creating a platform that solves problems for various constituents. By opening up our platform and API’s for thousands of developers we are catalysing innovation and solutions in the travel space. This is in line with our mission to organise transportation and accomodation industry.”

Commenting on the hackathon, Sachin Gupta, CEO and co-founder, HackerEarth said, “Technology has been enabling every facet of our lives. Technology, in the form of apps are not only convenient, but they also provide a lot of information for the user on the go. It is heartening to see companies like Goibibo using technology to better their offerings and empowering developers to come up with apps that would help any kind of traveller.”