John Lunn, Senior Global Director, Braintree and PayPal Developer Relations
This past weekend, BattleHack Singapore saw 38 teams come together at Cliftons, located in the heart of Singapore’s CBD. The competition was fierce with innovative apps addressing Singaporean social needs. At the end of it, PayPal and Braintree announced Team Jarvis as the winner of BattleHack Singapore 2015 for their hack that aids the supply of medicines for the elderly. Amulya Khare, Arvin Sabu Joseph, Mohit Kanwal and Rajul Gupta will go on to represent the nation state in the BattleHack World Finals being held in Silicon Valley this November, where they will compete against teams from around the world for the grand prize of $100,000 USD.
In typical BattleHack style, developers were treated to a wide array of scrumptious delights that showcased Singapore’s multicultural cuisine such as satay, Thai mango sticky rice, crodos from Da Paolo Gastronomia and many more. We also brought in a mobile cocktail station in the evening, as well as a crepe & egg station the next morning to provide breakfast to our hackers. And as always, the hackers also enjoyed massages during the course of the 24-hour hackathon.
Over a 24-hour period, the winning team built a “smart” medicine jar, equipped with a weight sensor that is able to detect the volume of pills contained within it. Once the volume of pills drops below a predefined threshold, the server intuitively notifies the Android app running on the caregiver’s phone, reminding him or her to purchase more medication. The app was also designed to provide users with the option of purchasing medication directly from nearby pharmacies, and have it delivered to their homes.
“The idea came about as we used to run out spices in our kitchen, and we were thinking about how to better keep track of things. For the BattleHack competition, we realized we could build something using that same concept, but for society at large. With this app, people will never run out of medication or spices ever again,” said Rajul.
Together with the judging panel made up of Jeffrey Paine, Founding Partner of Golden Gate Ventures, Mohan Belani, Co-Founder and CEO of e27 and Sayanee Basu, Curator of We Build SG, we agreed that Team Jarvis’s hack got to the heart of a key Singapore and human issue – caring for our loved ones. We were thoroughly impressed by the hacks from all the teams in Singapore. We ultimately selected Team Jarvis as their hack could ensure your loved ones would never miss their medication again.
Once again, Singapore has shown that it’s the startup capital of Asia because of the amazing developers that live here. We can’t wait to see what hacks teams will develop at our next stop in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Are you ready for us?
To learn more about BattleHack, please visit 2015.battlehack.org.