Kiwi.com announces winner of 2019 global travel hackaton

Kiwi.com announces winner of 2019 global travel hackaton

App from Penguin Bots supports local communities by offering travellers suggestions for concerts by local artists based on their flight searches

An application that connects travellers with local artists has won Kiwi.com’s 2019 global travel hackaton.

Twelve projects qualified for the final round of the hackathon, which was won by the app from Penguin Bots that supports local communities by offering travellers suggestions for concerts by local artists based on their flight searches.

The hackathon was focused on sustainability, accessibility and community, and brought together original ideas from more than 50 programming teams from all over the world.

Other finalists included Siesta Radar from Brno, which proposed ski or rafting suggestions based on snow or river conditions provided by satellite data combined with Kiwi.com’s booking API; a content platform askLiv from Barcelona, which gathers information for travellers based on their health conditions; the LightPath app from London, which finds well-lit routes through cities that avoid dark pathways; and the Drinking Water platform from Taiwan, which locates drinking water sources in cities in order to help reduce the use of plastic packaging in bottled water.

Elies Delgado and Oriol Nadal from the Penguin Bots team, from Barcelona, said: “We are constantly trying to come up with new ways to use technology to enhance aspects of our daily routines, or at least make them more fun, and we also love travelling.

“When we found out about Kiwi.com’s hackathon we became very excited about the challenge of spending 24 hours working on a creative idea that uses technology to make travel better.

“Right after the hackathon, we became very motivated by the feedback we received about our idea, and we decided to continue working on it in order to eventually publish it on the Chrome Store so people can use it.”

Kiwi.com chief information officer David Pavlík added: “We were excited about Penguin Bots idea to connect travel and music in the pre-trip phase.

“We believe this can bring inspiration when searching for a weekend away or put you in the mood for visiting places far away.

“The fact the team delivered a working solution within the given hackathon time and focused on simplicity convinced us that this should be the winner.”