erREFORM

4 Winning Ideas Presented at MassHack 2014

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Find a roommate with Viemate!

Find a compatible roommate with Viemate! Photo courtesy of Albert Herring/Tulane Public Relations, Wikimedia Commons.

I should have taken notes at this point – but I didn’t.  I’ll tell you what my bleary-eyed, coffeed-up, afternoon-hairdoed-self remembers.

First, a shoutout to Nancy at Parse, who was great to talk to!  Parse is affiliated with Facebook, and they both sponsored the event.  I heard the Parse presentation at the beginning, but did not realize there is a free version of their tools so we could try them!  Had I realized that, I would have used Parse for DethWench’s submission, erREFORM.

I bemoaned the lack of women at this hackathon, and all hackathons I’ve been to so far, and Nancy referred me to Startup Weekend.  I’ll have to check this out.  Thanks!

Here are 4 winning ideas you definitely want to watch:

  1. Viemate – This looks very promising, mainly because the leader of the group really did her homework.  This is a new, improved app to match people up with roommates, and it is definitely needed in Boston, if you listen to the banter on the T.  The purpose is not only to meet monetary and geolocation requirements for housing, but to make sure the roommates get along.  As the presenter implied, musicians can find other potsmokers, med students can find other bookworms, athletes can find other roidheads, etc. so they don’t fight when they move in.  They are almost live – sign up here so you can catch them when they go live!  They did a great demo at their presentation, but they built the interface in a weekend (per the rules), so it is not live yet.
  2. Glide – This app requires you to wear the smartphone strapped to your arm.  I didn’t not know about “standup paddleboarding” – where a person stands and paddles – until I saw this guy present, but he’s way into it.  As with runners, people who do this sport want to exactly troubleshoot their biomechanics, and this software tracks that and allows one to visualize it.  He suggested imaging an expert’s biomechanics, and this could be studied by students.  Judges liked his idea, and I suggested he check out OpenSim, as this reminded me of Army stuff I used to do.
  3. Turf.ly – This was a crowd and judges’ favorite as well, and was compellingly presented by developer Vik Paruchuri.  Through teams you build online (presumably with your friends), you walk/run around Boston or whatever city you are in to claim “turf”.  The idea is to capitalize on the well-researched fact that “buddy pressure” known scientifically as social support gets people to exercise.  Vik joked that he was testing this over Hackathon weekend, and immediately was spurred to exercise when he saw his girlfriend go on her morning run and take Boston Commons back as her “turf”!  So the app works, at least on the testbench!
  4. SpiritGuide – The judges were really hot on this one, but myself, not so much.  What the judges saw was a well-working, well-demonstrated product.  The developers showed an example of a guy shopping online for clothing for his girlfriend.  The person playing customer service person,  also a guy, instead of suggesting a “chat” like they do on the AT&T web site, actually opened a Skype-like face-to-face window, took over the customer’s computer, and used simple tools to navigate and highlight products to help the customer.  SpiritGuide was designed for small businesses – let’s say you happen to be online when a customer is there, you can SpiritGuide them up, say, “Hi, Customer!  Let me help you!” and help them.  The reason why I was not-so-hot on this is because of my fashion design background – I hate heavy-handed customer service, and that’s what this looked like.  Who doesn’t hate being ambushed when walking into Sak’s or the Oval Room in Minneapolis?  Give me H&M any day!  But since all the judges were men, and all the presenters were men, I don’t think they realized this potentially fatal flaw in SpiritGuide.

Of all these, only Viemate is live – go and sign up on their mailing list, even if you don’t have a place to let or are not looking for a place.  Who knows when you will need one?