A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of judging the first WearGood hackathon event in Columbus. Held at TechColumbus and put on by the CivicHacks team the event was “challenging”. David All is resilient guy. While I love wearable tech, I thought a hackathon with wearable tech would be challenging- because the average startup weekend is hard to see results. But David and Jennifer and his whole team rocked it, even with low participation in the overall event.
Let’s talk about participation. After doing events like Wakeup Startup, Ignite Columbus, Startup Weekend, and the hackathons I put together at TCO, participation in my view is a luck of the draw. You never really know you have it until the the last week or so before the event. In some ways I think of events around this notion that do I have enough friends to make it worth while, if yes, do it, if no then risk it and be happy regardless with outcome.
Events are about leading. They’re about telling the planet, “we’re supposed to be going this way” they are filled with RISK. You need to embrace the audacity within and go for it and that sounds cool but sucks big time when no one shows. We’re not mighty morphin power rangers, we’re people with feelings, we want traction, and when we work so hard and don’t get it, it sucks. So huge congrats to the WearGood team for pressing thru and making it happen with low participation numbers.
The Teams
I was seriously impressed with the teams, writing software in 24hrs is challenging, doing a wearable hacked thing, that sounds even harder. Sometimes its hard to judge these teams. I feel bad for judging teams like this because the act of creation itself never seems to get a break. I mean its hard enough willing something into existence and then being cross examined by folks who debate your biz model. In some ways I wish we wouldn’t discuss biz models and instead speak to traction and only that.
Anyways.. the teams. (via weargood site)
STEPLITE – FIRST PLACE
StepLite solves a medical challenge by deploying wearable technology to alert the person wearing the device when pressure is placed on the bottom of the foot.
Why it got first place? Why did this pitch win? Well for a few reasons I figure, one, its healthcare, and right now investors love anything healthcare. Second it worked, and the use case, the primary user was the creators husband. It was nice to see tangible working thing right there doing its job. It was also simple, understandable, a narrative that worked. It didn’t talk about a 64 billion dollar industry of feet, it spoke to this person in this room needs this thing right now. And they willed it life and there it was. So it just had all the right nuts and bolts to make it go. I loved that it kept working throughout the other pitches as well. The team was new, or at least felt new, they felt coachable. Product still has a ways to go but the size of the market, the applicable need and such all seemed good.
THE BAND – SECOND PLACE
The Band solves the identity problem in homelessness by using NFC technology to provide a profile that can be easily accessed from a wearable band.
What about this pitch? Well this team took the Frankencup award from me and BigKittyLabs. The prototype worked, and I like software feats of amazement in short time frames. I also liked the “data” aspect of this play and its “infrastructure” opportunity. If done well, and nets adoption, this concept would get acquired for organizing, enabling a whole new market. However, later I thought.. you might not need hardware at all and simple go with biometrics and use fingerprint id and just do away with yet another thing people can use and or traffic to exploit the system.
SHAKE UP – THIRD PLACE
Shake Up addresses unemployment and entrepreneurship by bringing the act of swapping business cards to a wearable device in a fun and engaging way.
What about this pitch? This one i was surprised got into the top 3. I think it did because it looked the most “built” The pitcher had the item on his hand with wires and all it feel the most cyber. But I dunno for me its another kickstarter project, go for it, but i’m not sure about the biz per say. But by all means go for it.
PAVLOG
Pavlog is an app that connects wearable technology to the Internet of things to create a personal marketplace for all of your connected habits.
What about this pitch? This pitch felt familiar, if you’ve followed the quantified self scene there are alot of companies connecting health to habits and the like. Pitch wise I felt I needed to see more on this one to get the gist of where it was going. Its an idea that I’d continue to work on though- but at an insurance/accountable care angle so that what you end up has sustainable traction to it.
COMPASS
A wearable device can be used to educate by gamifying field trips and unlocking interesting content.
What about this pitch? Geocaching concepts are coming back. This one had an interesting twist where by kids gain from location based education aspects, like, challenges of go to COSI, go here, go there etc. It’d be another idea that could work, but needs baked.
REFRACT
Refract is a public art installation that uses wearable technology to interact with mind-bending glass/light displays.
What about this pitch? Cool idea from the hackable aspect. I think this one would do well on Kickstarter, but it screamed expensive infrastructure to get going and be a biz. But thats where kickstarter can help maybe. I liked the idea of citizens hacking/updating city public art installations.
LIGHT IT UP
Events can use the Light It Up wearable technology to synchronize massive, personal light shows.
What about this pitch? This felt like something that RedBull would sponsor. Needed to be baked more, but they pulled off the tech demo.
Overall great event, look forward to seeing more from the Civic Hacks team in the future!