Announcing the winners of the Build What’s POS_sible Hackathon
Congratulations to the winners!
Thank you to everyone who participated in Square’s first-ever Build What’s POS–sible hackathon. This year, participants got to build innovative applications using at least one of our customer solution APIs, including Customers, Gift Cards, Invoices, Loyalty and Team Management. Square has become known primarily for its payments and point-of-sale solutions, but there’s so much more. We wanted to host this hackathon to give developers the opportunity to build with these APIs, as well as collect feedback to continually improve upon our API offerings.
During the hackathon, participants utilized one or more of our customer APIs to build useful tools that help sellers scale and grow their business. We had several prizes, including a $20,000 grand prize, and categories for most creative use cases valuable feedback were also awarded. To no surprise, our developer community took the challenge in stride and we were impressed by the submissions we received from developers all over the world.
And now, the winners 🎉
The winners will share $100,000 in cash prizes. Scoring was based on the following judging criteria:
- Quality of the Idea: Includes creativity and originality of the idea
- Implementation of the Idea: Includes how well the idea was executed by the developer, how well the featured Square APIs were leveraged, and, if applicable, how creatively multiple Square APIs were used together
- Quality of the Submission Package: Includes the quality of the description, video demo, and any other materials submitted to Devpost and how ready the submission is for publication in the App Marketplace
- Potential Value to Square Sellers and Customers: Includes the extent to which the solution can improve the retail or e-commerce experience for Square sellers and/or their customers.
Grand prize ($20,000)
Developers: Samantha Wong, Luannie Dang
Cadence is an automation platform designed to help small business owners get more done and grow without needing to hire more staff.
Second place ($15,000)
Developers: William Shiao, Eric Ong, Theo Shiao, Joshua Sun
Dingo leverages Square APIs alongside the Dingo team’s own machine learning algorithm to generate recommendations for customers at a store, and then contact them with discounted recommendation options to select from.
Third place ($12,500)
Developers: Catherine Jue, Veena Kumar, Ashwin Kumar
Refer-a-Friend is an app built on Square's customer point-of-sale APIs (Gift Cards, Loyalty, Customers) that lets Square customers buy gift cards for their friends – from their favorite Square merchants – and get loyalty points every time their friends use those gift cards!
Fourth place ($10,000)
Developers: Arjun Vasan, Vasan Varadarajan, Rajeev Viswanathan, Robert Nessler, Sam Aoki
Cyborg Squared uses an AI voice answering technology to process incoming calls for businesses, whether it’s booking appointments, ordering food, or making reservations.
Fifth place ($7,500)
Flash Order Gift Card Ordering
Developers: Weston Hafen, Jonlund Lund
The Flash Order Gift Order integration leverages the Gift Cards API to issue and redeem Square gift cards through the Flash Order self-order kiosk.
Honorable mentions ($5,000)
Developers: Ryan May, Betsy Berger
CashEAR is an audio-based point-of-sale assistant–eliminating the need for cashier handling when accepting cards at checkout.
Developers: Sumanth Muni
Goodpoints uses Loyalty API where customers can use loyalty points earned from purchases at seller businesses to donate to social causes and charities.
Developer: Arvind Naidu
Square Phone is a simple VOIP adapter that connects any regular landline to a SIP domain.
Developer: Alisa Khieu
Square Starbot enables Square sellers to integrate their Discord community with their Square loyalty program.
Developers: Sandip Southekal, Chris Peltzer
smart retain helps small businesses understand their customer base through a better view of their customer data.
Most creative use case for Gift Cards API ($2,500)
Most creative use case for Loyalty API ($2,500)
Most creative use case for Invoices API ($2,500)
Developers: Rakhshitha Sankineni
Snapsdeal allows sellers to create a no cart and no queue store, making it easier for customers to purchase products in the app and pick up in store, without the need to find or queue for carts in store.
Most valuable feedback ($500)
The following developers provided us with some of the most meaningful feedback throughout the hackathon–we can’t wait to improve upon our API offerings based on the feedback received from our developer community.
Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks again to everyone who participated in the Build What’s POS_sible hackathon!
Curious to see all the apps that were submitted? Check out the submissions gallery.
Moving forward
For the latest on the Square Developer Platform, follow us @squaredev and join the conversation on the Square Developer Forums.
We’ll be back soon with another hackathon, but that doesn’t mean you should wait to build your next app. Check out solutions sellers are looking for and start building.
We can’t wait to see what you build next!
Authored By
-
- Grand prize ($20,000)
- Second place ($15,000)
- Third place ($12,500)
- Fourth place ($10,000)
- Fifth place ($7,500)
- Honorable mentions ($5,000)
- Most creative use case for Gift Cards API ($2,500)
- Most creative use case for Loyalty API ($2,500)
- Most creative use case for Invoices API ($2,500)
- Most valuable feedback ($500)
