THack Mallorca - May'16

During Friday night May 6 through Sunday May 8 I attended THack Mallorca, a Hackathon organized by Tnooz, a global provider of news and analysis to the travel industry.

During the weekend I worked almost non-stop in a 4 people team: 2 developers from minube and 2 developers from Skyscanner including myself.

After discussing different sort of ideas during a quick brain storming session, we agreed on creating a new product targeting travelers who prioritize activities over sightseeing. We also tried to maximize our ROI by consuming three external APIs from different sponsors. The team developed an internal API that suggested the best hotel based on the location of the activities chosen by the user and I developed an Android app consuming the team’s API.

Overall, it was a great but exhausting experience in terms of working in an extremely fast paced environment and collaborating with other developers immersed in the travel industry. We also had the chance to talk to many competing teams coming from other companies like Trivago or Viajes el Corte Ingles.

These events are quite refreshing as it allows to somehow blur the self-imposed limitations that are inherent to working in big companies with clear goals.

It was a great and nice surprise to win 3 prizes from 3 different sponsors:

  • Second prize from HotelBeds for best use of their API
  • Second prize from Musement for best use of their API
  • First prize from Booking.com for best API feedback

I had a great time during this event and would gladly join again in the future.

Check the presentation we did for the final pitch:

https://speakerdeck.com/esaezgil/activiti-dot-es-technobeatles

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