Announcing Winners of the Square Hackathon for Emerging Technologies

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Square Hackathon 2023! This year more than a thousand developers submitted apps built with Square APIs and other emerging technologies. They competed for a grand prize of $20,000 alongside other prize packages for a total of $81,000 in prizes! Our hackathon participants proved that there is so much you can do with Square to make commerce solutions easy and accessible for sellers.

The “Emerging Technologies” hackathon categories were:

• Best reinvention or unification of in-person and online experiences
• Most potential for positive change
• Best use of geofencing or augmented reality
• Best use of Generative AI
• Best use of Square Terminal API, Subscriptions API, and/or Invoices API
• Most impressive technical implementation
• Most valuable feedback

Submissions were judged based on the following 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
• Potential value to business: Includes the extent to which the app can help businesses grow
• Integrative experience: Includes how well the app integrates the in-person and virtual experiences
• Potential community impact: Includes how impactful the app will be as a driver for positive change within the community

With that we are thrilled to announce this year’s winners. Check out what our incredible developer community built.

First Place Overall ($20,000)

Google Forms - Payable Kiosk

Team: Ryan May, Betsy Berger, Terry Price, Yemi Fakorede, David Le

Payable Kiosk transforms any Google Form into a custom, payment-capable, self-service kiosk. Sellers can use the Google Apps they are already familiar with to design and build their own kiosks. After each order submission, the data and payment status is stored in a connected Google Sheet to keep sellers organized and to enable the data to link into additional workflows.

Second Place Overall ($15,000)

Square AI

Team: Zhuyuan He, Jimmy Wang

Square AI lets business owners take advantage of sales data to generate comprehensive psychographic analysis of their customers. Businesses can gain valuable insights into popular sales items with its associated customers’ demographics, preferences, interests, lifestyles, and trends. They can also craft personalized marketing campaigns and tailor product catalogs to meet the preferences of their customer segments with one button-click.

Best Reinvention or Unification of In-Person and Online Experiences ($12,000)

Standby

Team: Ed Arenberg

Standby is a mobile app and service that offers service providers a simple way to notify clients about appointment slots that open up on their calendars. Clients can easily decline or attempt to claim a slot when it opens. Standby is a subscription service, paid by the service providers with Square Subscriptions.

Most Potential for Positive Change ($10,000)

Digital Payments for Transparency and Fair Supply Chains

Team: AukiJuanDiaz Diers, Josua Ovari, Anna Hurnaus

The team developed a prototype that enables coffee farmers to sell their harvests with a digital payment to the roastery. With the app, coffee farmers can set up a location with Square, enter their current goods in their inventories, set a price for their goods, and use the app to generate a QR code so they can be paid by mobile payment or credit card. Digital payments increase transparency in the supply chain, which is important for social sustainability.

Best Use of Square Terminal API, Subscriptions API, and/or Invoices API ($7,000) and Most Impressive Technical Implementation ($2,000)

B2B Invoicing

Team: Maria A. King, Adrian Rivera, Jose Carlos Chacon, Roberto Alvarez, Oskar Torres, Gabriel De Andrade, Christyna Monsalve, Luis Martinez, Rowland Saer, Jorge Nava

B2B Invoicing for Square by SEEED is an app that allows merchants to manage invoices, to accept payments, and to set up customer credit lines. With a dedicated dashboard, merchants can view their account summaries, manage invoices, and receive payments. The app also includes a unique customer portal where customers can manage invoices, make full or partial payments, and view their account credit limits.

Best Use of Geofencing and Augmented Reality ($5,000)

Table Book

Team: Benjamin Piggott

Table Book is a 3D table booking app for restaurants with augmented reality-assisted venue scanning, built on Square Bookings API. Customers can use the client app to browse venues, to view venues’ 3D layouts and tables, to swipe through time slots and view the availability of those tables, to test drive a table by viewing a 360° perspective from the table, and to complete a booking.

Best Use of Generative AI ($5,000)

Multi-Modal Bots for Sellers

Team: Sagar Golla

While online ordering for restaurants is on the rise, many customers prefer to call restaurants directly to avoid additional fees that delivery partner apps charge. With labor shortages in the restaurant industry, it’s challenging to manage these calls. This app uses AI and a HostBuddy voice bot that acts as a call center for restaurants, and it posts orders placed over the phone into the Square Register automatically.

Most Valuable Feedback ($1,000)

We want to extend a special thank you to the following prize winners who contributed valuable feedback to help us improve the Square developer platform: Hong Tran, Abhijit Roy, Kevin Munyua, Rohith ND, and Kevin Loeffler.

Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks again to everyone who participated. Curious to see all the apps that were submitted? Check out the submissions gallery. Also keep an eye out for an upcoming hackathon releasing later this year.

Until then, connect with us on our community Slack channel or Square Developer Forums. If you want to keep up to date with the rest of our content, be sure to follow this blog and our Twitter account.