Hack The Arena: The Winners and Highlights
Orlando’s first ever sports and entertainment hackathon concluded this weekend. It was a weekend full of innovative ideas and people working close together. Hack The Arena was hosted in partnership with the Orlando Magic ,with the Solar Bears and the Orlando Tech Association. It brought together 75 participants who teamed up to create 11 unique ideas to help improve the fan engagement in the sports and entertainment industry.
The teams participated in six challenges including gamification, transportation, data & analytics, immersive technology, and smart sensors, all in hopes to become the winner.
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On Sunday afternoon, teams had the chance to show off their hard work on the big screen and in front of a panel of senior executives from the Orlando Magic and Solar Bears. Among the judges from the Magic were COO Charles Freeman, VP of Technology Jeff Lutes, VP of Business Strategy Anthony Perez. From the Solar Bears, President and CEO Jason Seigel and Director of Marketing Alex Wall. The judges evaluated ideas based on the functionality, creativity of the application, innovation and the commercial potential behind the idea.
Winners of the cash prizes were IDEA and JumboGame, each taking home $1,000.IDEA won for the Orlando Magic. They created a way to engage fans by playing fun competitive games against each other during the down time in games. This application brings together thousands of fans into a single live game, where players join teams to compete against each other.
JumboGame was the winner for the Orlando Solar Bears. They came up with a way to allow sports teams to invite fans to compete for prizes by playing trivia games on the Jumbotron using their phones as the game controller. They are already planning a meeting with the Solar Bears to find a way to implement their ideas in one of their biggest upcoming games on March 19th.
Runner-Ups
Magic
JumboGames- Came up with a way to allow sports teams to invite fans to compete for prizes by playing trivia games on the Jumbotron.
Amway Jam- Created a game that combines trivia and prediction questions allowing fans to earn rewards and collect prizes.
Group of the Game- Web application that allows fans to login using their social media accounts and access their seating information, play a quick game for a chance to be displayed live on the JumboTron and win prizes.
Solar Bears
IDEA- They created a way to engage fans by playing fun competitive games against each other during the down time in games.
Amway Jam- Created a game that combines trivia and prediction questions allowing fans to earn rewards and collect prizes.
Engage- Engage allows teams to activate fans to the Jumbotron by using the devices from the fans hands.
Director of Innovation for the Orlando Magic, Jack Elkins, helped us organize the weekend event. “It is inspiring to collaborate with the Orlando tech community. There were a lot of talented individuals and interesting concepts. Overall the event exceeded expectations,” said Elkins. He hopes to see more events like this in the future.
We look forward to growing this event and bringing it back with additional sponsors. Stay tuned for more information on when the next Hack The Arena will be.
Check out the rest of the submissions and what the teams came up with Hack The Arena Submissions
