Bridgewater, NJ (May 27, 2020) — The third-annual hackathon by Brother International Corporation and subsidiary Brother Mobile Solutions attracted 40 designers and developers competing in 26 teams over the course of several weeks in April and May, culminating in a resoundingly successful main virtual event May 15-16. The winning team received the grand prize of $5,000 for spurring innovation in software application development for Brother’s printing, scanning and labeling solutions.
Following 2019’s successful Hackathon in Dallas, this year, for the first time ever, the hackathon was virtual amid ongoing social-distancing requirements. Interest was as strong as ever, as applications to participate in the virtual hackathon had to be capped due to capacity limitations.
In keeping with global events, competitors were challenged to build apps to promote health and social good. For example, preceding the main hackathon, contestants could participate in three mini-hackathons:
Mini-hackathon challenge #1: Build a gift card app for small businesses that allows them to sell gift cards to generate revenue during these challenging times.
Mini-hackathon challenge #2: Build a signage app for essential businesses that prints instant signs, which will help inform employees and customers of the latest local health mandates.
Mini-hackathon challenge #3: Build a social good app to help seniors and persons with disabilities who live in local nursing homes.
Participants in both the main and mini hackathons, mostly from the state of Washington, where the original event was to be held, created prototypes for new apps that seamlessly integrated with the Brother QL Label Printer, Brother Pocket Jetfull-page thermal printer, Brother RuggedJet Mobile receipt and label printer, or a Brother scanner. In addition to the grand prize, all contestants in the main event also received a brand-new Brother QL-820NWB printer and accessories valued at $300, plus a $20 food credit for use during the event.
“Hackathons are always an incredible outlet for team collaboration and creativity,” said Bob Brady, senior product manager, Brother International. “The first goal was to have fun, but the projects demonstrated here could truly have real-world business impact.”
Main Event Winners:
- The Platinum Award went to Joe Mestrovich for building the app ‘DivvyScan’, which helps convert public domain books to ebooks by distributing scanning tasks to volunteers.
- The Gold Award app was ‘Soundpaper’ by Ken Berkun, which converts an audio recording into a unique barcode that contains the audio data for superior record keeping.
- ‘BoxBro’ by Dylan Theriot, Yonathan Zetune, and Anooj Shah won the Silver Award; the app is a storage management solution that makes it easy to print labels to digitally record the contents of physical containers.
- Chickee Fuerman & Akash Yadav won the Healthcare Vertical Award for ‘Memorii’, an app thoughtfully designed to help seniors better remember important information through QR labels.
- Sara Wong & Michael Boone won the Education Vertical Award for their ‘Transcorder’ app, which can transcribe real sound recordings into sheet music.
- The Retail Vertical Award went to Neelima Potharaj for ‘CaptureFresh’, an app for printing food expiration labels and other important food information.
Mini-hackathon winners:
- Gift Card app – Manish Dwibedy Signage app – Lazaro Herrera & Mary Pouleson;
- Contactless printing app – Lathe Abusaid;
- App for seniors – Ed Arenberg;
- App for children – Mackensie Alvarez;
- App with use of a Raspberry Pi and/or an external sensor – Zafer Ozsoy.
Contestants were graded by a judging panel consisting of Brother executives, as well as guest judge Dan Anderson, creator of the popular Dad Logic technology blog.
“We challenged every entrant to apply their ingenuity to some of Brother’s most advanced products,” said Ronak Patel, Technical Marketing Specialist, Brother International Corporation. “The thought and dedication given to unlocking these devices’ full potential was very impressive.”
“As a first-time judge, it was amazing to see the collaboration between the truly innovative application developers who participated this year and the Brother engineers from both the US and Japan. I’m bullish on a few applications that I think have a real opportunity to translate into enterprise solutions for our customers and resellers across multiple verticals,” said Greg O’Connell, vice president of sales for Brother Mobile Solutions.
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About Brother International Corporation
Brother is a leading provider of office equipment technology and document management solutions, including award-winning color and black and white multifunctional printers, scanners, label printers and device-based cloud and mobile technologies. The Brother P-touch line of label and ribbon printers features laminated and specialty tapes along with printable ribbons. Brother printers are consistently recognized as the best in the industry and recently received PCMag’s 2019 Readers’ Choice and Business Choice awards. Brother International Corporation’s At Your Side philosophy demonstrates a dedication to product quality, customer service and dynamic partnerships. Established in 1954 and headquartered in Bridgewater, New Jersey, Brother markets business, home office and industrial products, along with home appliances.
About Brother Mobile Solutions
Brother Mobile Solutions Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brother International Corporation, provides innovative mobile and desktop printing and industrial labeling solutions to field workforces and mobile enterprises. Brother International Corporation and its subsidiaries employ over 1,100 people in the Americas.
