Malaysia’s first Smart Retail Hackathon organised by Atlas Vending went so well that organisers are already mulling on when to set the next one.
The Atlas Hack Virtual Hackathon held last month in cooperation with JomHack Malaysia had organisers in awe with the sheer amount of talent and innovative ideas being churned out by the local tech community during the three-day event.
“We know that there are so many incredible tech talents in this country and it is time for Atlas Vending to create more programmes to engage these talents and work with them to create better opportunities for Malaysian talents while improving our retail ecosystem,” Head of Marketing and Ancillary Sales of Atlas Vending Amy Gan said in a media statement.
“We would love to implement and commercialise some of the winning ideas and even offer job opportunities to some of the talented participants,” she added further.
She said the retail industry has seen many challenges recently due to the COVID-19 related restrictions, but this has also created many new opportunities for innovation with businesses being forced to go through some kind of digital transformation to adapt to the current norms.
As such there was a pressing need to make vending machines more automated than ever, to reduce manual labour, and to provide a contactless purchasing experience for customers to remain safe in this COVID-19 era.
Hence, Atlas Vending has taken the proactive approach to further encourage innovation within the retail space, by engaging more tech talents in Malaysia to be interested in retail businesses through this event.
This inaugural hackathon for Atlas Vending had 35 teams competing to create innovative projects based on the four major challenges provided by the organisers. The teams were also presented with various bounty ideas to work on.
Winners received a total of RM25,600 in cash prizes.
The champions were team Visi consisting of members Vincent Wong, Edison Tan and Vee Han who impressed the judges with their contactless medication vending machine project.
Team Veo with members Tan Jun Wei, Roland Chieng Ung Lung and Soo Mun Chong came in second with their contactless ‘gesture-based purchasing solution, while team UpAI with members Chen Wai Yang, Chen Zi Ying and Choy Jun Hao clinched the third spot with their version of contactless purchasing solution.
The virtual hackathon was conducted through an interactive platform, where teams were guided by mentors from both Atlas Vending and JomHack throughout the event.
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