The intense BlackBerry JamHack 2012 held last weekend closed its doors after 40-hours of non-stop hacking. It’s the first-ever simultaneous regional hackathon held by BlackBerry. The team of developers from Websmith ATP Sdn Bhd (“Team Websmith”) took the crown and will be representing Malaysia at the BlackBerry Jam Asia hackathon in Bangkok.
We visited BlackBerry JamHack 2012 at University of Management and Technology in Petaling Jaya on the first night (12 October) and the venue buzzed with excitement and engaged hackers comprising of developers, students and BlackBerry enthusiasts. The event saw participation of some 70 people divided into 12 teams.
Teams were given 40 hours to conceptualise, design and build a working app for the BlackBerry 10 platform using frameworks such as the BlackBerry 10 Adobe AIR SDK, BlackBerry 10 Native SDK or BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK.
Eventual winner Team Websmith wowed the crowd with their clever implementation of augmented reality in their app called 1BB.
1BB is built with the BlackBerry 10 Native SDK and is a directory- and location-based app that lists out various Kedai Runcit 1Malaysia (grocery stores) and Klinik 1Malaysia (clinics) around Malaysia. The app utilises GPS and AR to allow users to find locations through the device’s camera.
With BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha devices to test on, Team Websmith is confident that the 1BB app will be available on BlackBerry App World soon.
Three-man developer team Highlight was the runners-up, who only formed their team on Friday night after initially entering JamHack as individuals. The first time developers on BlackBerry used the graphical-rich environment of development platform Cascades to develop their app.
The winning team from Websmith ATP walked away with an all-expense paid trip to BlackBerry Jam Asia in Bangkok, where they will be pitting against nine other teams from the region for the title of Asia Pacific champion.
Good luck, Team Websmith!
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Media Alert (15 October 2012)
Team Websmith ATP Emerges as Winner of the BlackBerry JamHack 2012 (Malaysia)
BlackBerry JamHack 2012 closed its doors today after 40 furious hours, and marked its place in history as BlackBerry’s first simultaneous regional hackathon. The winner from this weekend will be representing Malaysia during BlackBerry Jam Asia in Bangkok.
Opened to the public, BlackBerry JamHack 2012 in Malaysia kicked off at the University of Management and Technology in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, on Friday (12 October) and saw the participation of twelve teams.
Comprising of professional developers, student teams, and BlackBerry enthusiasts, the teams were given 40 hours to conceptualize and build a working application for the BlackBerry 10 platform using frameworks such as the BlackBerry 10 Adobe AIR SDK, BlackBerry 10 Native SDK or BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK.
When it came to pitching, the team of developers from Websmith ATP Sdn Bhd wowed the crowd with their clever implementation of augmented reality in their winning application called 1BB.
Built with the BlackBerry 10 Native SDK, 1BB is a directory based application which lists out the details of the various Kedai Runcit 1Malaysia (1Malaysia Grocery Stores) and Klinik 1Malaysia (1Malaysia Clinics) around Malaysia.
Besides listing out core details such as the address, opening hours and contact details, the application makes use of GPS and augmented reality, allowing users to find the nearest 1Malaysia outlets through the device’s camera.
“We’re very happy with the win,” said the team’s lead developer, Tan Yin See. “We worked hard to include elements like augmented reality into our application, and now that we have a BlackBerry DevAlpha device to test it on, we’re confident that the app will be on BlackBerry App World soon.”
BlackBerry JamHack also proved that the BlackBerry 10 Native SDK is an easily accessible framework, as proven by the runner up team, Highlight. Comprising of three developers who formed their team on Friday after entering BlackBerry JamHack as individuals, Highlight took advantage of the easily programmable rich graphical interface from Cascades.
“This is the first time that any of us are developing for the BlackBerry 10 platform,” explained team lead Hassan Mohd Basri. “We did our best during the time that was allocated, and we’re very happy with the results!”
Highlight is a social event listing application, and pulls content from the web about local happenings in the surrounding area. Besides receiving information on these events, the application also has built in sharing functionalities which allow the user to push out interesting events to their contacts via BBM.
The winning team from Websmith ATP walked away with an all-expense paid trip to BlackBerry Jam Asia in Bangkok, where they will be pitting against nine other teams from the region for the title of Asia Pacific champion.
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