AngelHack is a global hackathon organization founded in 2011. AngelHack also hosts an annual global hackathon competition where participants compete to build, test, and launch new software solutions over the course of 48 hours. In Sri Lanka, it’s known as AngelHack Sri Lanka. This past weekend, we were a part of AngelHack Sri Lanka 2017. Held at the Dialog HQ in partnership with Dialog Ideamart, AngelHack Sri Lanka 2017 commemorating the 10th Global Hackathon Series, under the theme Commit To Your Code, was held on the 10th and 11th of June 2017. A total of 19 teams took part in AngelHack Sri Lanka 2017. Here’s are the Participating teams that took part.
Void
How many times have you missed a lecture and had a hard time catching up? This app connects you with mentors that can help you with the classes that you missed. So you can search for mentors close by to your location, then request a session with the mentors. If the mentor accepts the request, then they can conduct a class for a price that they agree upon with the mentee. Void would then take a small percentage of the amount the mentor earns. In a nutshell, this is decentralized tutoring.
Public Phone Charger with Safety Box
This startup wants to offer a safety deposit box that you can put your valuables in and charge your phone as well. It’s a coin operated deposit box, where you enter a PIN number as a security feature, then the amount you put into the deposit box would decide the duration for which your phone would be charged. To reopen the safety deposit box, you simply have to re-enter the PIN number. Their primary target market is shopping malls, beaches, and public spaces.
Sapphires.lk
This is a B2C platform that aims to connect gem miners with jewellery manufacturers. The platform would obtain the gem from the miners, generate 3D models of it, and then offer it to jewellery manufacturers. In a nutshell, this is an ecommerce platform to purchase gems. With each transaction, they take a small percentage as a commission.
Qtie
This is an electrical adapter that helps you transform your normal appliances into a smart home device. It offers a variety of features from timer controls, brightness controls, GPS display, mapping, and even emergency notification alerts. The target market is a broad one with anyone with a smartphone that can afford to spend $30 on the device.
During the Q&A session, the judges commented that it might be priced a bit too low as the team had only taken into account the cost of raw materials required to manufacture Qtie when setting the price. A product needs to take into account the indirect costs as well such as: marketing, labour, etc. Furthermore, the judges felt that the team wasn’t optimized as they felt that teams should utilize machine learning technologies to analyse the usage data and offer cost savings.
Ruupal
“Ruupal redefines the way you see the world”, is how this team said to open their pitch. This is a livestreaming platform that allows you to visit other locations. To do so, you can select the location and the request to access the phone of a person at that location. Then if the person accepts the request, you can view a livestream of whatever is happening in that location. Furthermore, you can also take pictures remotely of whatever you see on the livestream and then have that picture saved on your phone.
Lawyered
We first saw this at Inspire Sri Lanka. This is an application that allows you to find the laws that apply to any given location. If you select a location, then you can get in touch with a lawyer in real time.
You can also find lawyers by searching via tags. For each consultation they charge a small commission from the lawyers. During the Q&A sessions, the judges noted that they need a lot reviews for the system to work, but to obtain reviews it needs users. The judges also stated that not all locations have very specific laws. Furthermore, the judges added that they doubt people would be willing to pay for a wide range of laws. They recommended that the team simplify their focus on a simpler solution.
Traverlust
Here’s an app we saw at AngelHack Sri Lanka 2017 that wants to help you become a travel expert. This app wants to help you easily find the perfect destination that’ll give you a memorable experience.
Traverlust is a travel inspiration platform. During the demo, we saw a homepage where you enter a country and click a button called inspire me that will show you a bunch of locations. Select a location and you’ll find the latest social media posts and general information about the location as well. Afterwards, you can create a customized travel plan for your trip. Their primary aim is to partner up with hotels and travellers to obtain users.
EasyDeposit
We first found EasyDeposit at Kotiyak Vatina Adhasak last year. This is a startup that wants to make banks more accessible to those that cannot visit banks.
EasyDeposit allows you to deposit money into your account by using your mobile phone and scratch cards. All you need to do is simply purchase a scratch card of the amount you want to deposit into your account, scratch the card to obtain the code, and then enter the USSD code to deposit the money into your account. Since we last met them, the EasyDeposit team has spoken with a few banks that are apparently interested in adopting the system and are planning to launch it in 3 months.
Rain Catcher
“Can we predict the weather and make money off it?”, was the question this team threw at us to open their pitch. This startup utilizes as Raspberry Pi that acts as a sensor with a 3D camera to monitor the weather. As it monitors the weather and identify local weather patterns via their app. However, unlike the multitude of other free weather apps or even Google that offers local weather data, Rain Catcher offers its data on a subscription basis.
Work and Hire
There are 328,572 blue-collar workers and they make up 12.6% of the Sri Lankan labour force. This startup wants to empower them to easily find jobs. Their online platform allows you to search and create advertisements for Rs. 500 stating what type of blue-collar workers you need. If you’re a blue-collar worker, then you can create your own profile on the platform to promote yourself for a monthly subscription.
LusterX
Similar to Sapphires.lk, this is an E-Commerce platform that wants to help gem miners. But this is a B2B platform that connects gem miners directly with jewellery manufacturers eliminating the middlemen unlike Sapphires.lk, which aims at the final customer.
When they obtain gems, certify it, and generate 360 degree videos of the gem itself. If the buyer sees a gem they like, then they can reserve it. LusterX verifies if the gem is still available and then if it is would ship the gem to the manufacturer. In the event the manufacturer isn’t satisfied with the gem then LusterX offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Great Tutor
This was the youngest team here at AngelHack Sri Lanka 2017. Great Tutor is an online platform that helps you find tutors for a subject a student needs help with. The platform filters tuition teachers by country and city. So if you select Sri Lanka and then Colombo, you’ll find all the teachers in Colombo. The team doesn’t plan to charge anything from students but rather they’ll be charging a subscription fee from the tutors.
Save Yo Bills
Bills are something we hardly give a second thought to unless we buy something expensive like a new phone because that bill is the warranty. However, even then we still give these bills little thought until that new phone breaks and we start looking all across the house trying to find the bill to claim the warranty.
Save Yo Bills, developed by a team of students from IIT (Informatics Institute of Technology) wants to eliminate the hunt for these bills by saving your apps digitally. It works by combining the Save Yo Bills API to keep track of the bills. The bills will have a QR code, which you can scan and then save the data on the bill by signing into the app.
KYU 360
KYU 360 wants to simplify the process of creating 360 videos. During the demo, we saw the team share with everyone the process of adding the AngelHack logo into a 360 video.
The team also stated that you can also create layers to edit the background as well. At the end of the pitch though, we felt it was heavily hyped up as the only thing the app did was just add a sticker to a 360 video. Ultimately, you still have to go through the trouble of using dedicated cameras to capture a 360 video. All Kyu does is merely simplify the process of editing videos, even then there are likely better tools out there already.
SEO Assistant
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a crucial factor to consider when you’re marketing a product or service. This is because SEO is the process of ensuring that your website appears in the first page of Google Search results when a user searches for the product or service you offer.
To help you with SEO, this team has built an app where you can drop in your website’s HTML code and then it would analyse your website content to give you an SEO score that would tell you how to improve your content to obtain a better ranking on Google. Initially, the team plans to offer their service free. However, you’re bound to find more experienced apps that offer the same thing.
Hands Free Carom
This team arguably had the most unique solution at AngelHack Sri Lanka 2017. This is a device that makes carom more accessible to new players. The device allows you to play carom with your legs. The controls are located at the bottom with your legs that allows you control the targeting, speed of the shot, and fire the shot. During the demo, we saw a massive crowd form around the judges to witness the device in action.
Thumbs Up
This is a website that allows you to rate items at restaurants. The homepage will feature a search feature, which can be sped up with QR codes. Once you select the place, you’ll find trending items at that location. The system will be offered in two forms to restaurants: a free version and a paid version. They’re also offering sponsored rewards for general users.
Sifty
This is a messenger bot that recommends things you can buy on ecommerce sites. During the demo we saw the team ask the bot that they’re looking for something for your moms birthday. Sifty asked what they had in mind, and reply was sari and then it asked for a colour. Afterwards, Sifty recommended a few saris to purchase. The bot operates on a commission based basis.
JustIn
JustIn is a website and app that wants to ensure that you won’t be broke during a trip. It takes your budget, looks at popular locations based on FB checkins and hashtags, and then recommends a travel plan that fits into your budget. Additionally, it also has communication features that allows you to meet fellow travellers to share things such as accommodations or taxis. The basic app is free but they’ll also have premium features available for $5.
With that, the presentations came to an end and the judges put on their proverbial thinking caps to select a winner.
Who won AngelHack Sri Lanka 2017?
Judging a competition of this nature is by no means an easy task and with the ideas presented here, the judging panel had their work cut out for them. After countless debates and discussions, they finally came to a conclusion. The winner of AngelHack Sri Lanka 2017 was Save Yo Bills from IIT.
They say To the victors, belong the spoils. and what spoils indeed. The Team for Save Yo Bills would receive an exclusive invite to AngelHack’s own HACKcelerator, a 12-week curriculum to turn their idea into a startup reality. Further, they would also stand a chance to fly to Silicon Valley for Angel Hack’s Annual Global Demo Day and to participate in a week of extensive pitch training.
That’s not all though. The team would also receive USD 200 in Amazon Web Services Credit person through AWS Activate. In addition, they would take part in GovTech, a hackathon to fight violent extremism in order to foster peace and coexistence through technology. The winners would receive a $500 USD cash prize. From the 25 finalist teams, the top 3 teams will be selected by an esteemed panel of judges to receive a $2500 travel stipend per team to travel to London and pitch to leading investors for continued support of their soluti
Lastly, the team will stand the chance to take part in a hackathon organized by Restb.ai, where winners would also receive 5000 free API calls to all attendees and the grand prize winner will receive 5000 free API calls a month for one whole year.
With certificates being handed to the winners, all the participants gathered for a group photo and AngelHack Sri Lanka 2017 came to an end.
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