BAY AREA LOCALS WIN TWO CHALLENGES AT COMCAST NBCUNIVERSAL HACKATHON IN SUNNYVALE

From Comcast California and NBC Universal

SUNNYVALE, CA - Last weekend, nearly 200 developers participated in the 5th Comcast NBCUniversal Hackathon in Sunnyvale, hacking for 24 straight hours to develop new forms of storytelling inspired by emerging technology – 41 teams were formed, 49 prototypes were built and four prizes were awarded.

Teams were asked to tackle the following three innovative challenges that impact the way we interact with media:

1. Connected Car Challenge: Create unique Connected Car experiences that engage the driver and passengers with their vehicle and make the driving experience easier, more fun, or more informative.

2. Content Finds Consumer (CFC) Challenge: Develop a system to use emerging technologies—like artificial intelligence and machine learning—to deliver relevant and interesting content directly to consumers based on their changing interests, context, circumstances like time of day, location, weather, life stages, etc.

3. Universal Pictures Challenge: Build a platform or an experience that lets fans take video, imagery, sound and 3D art from their favorite movie and personalize it. Create ways to generate excitement about the movie, compelling moviegoers to engage with the movie and buy tickets and/or purchase the movie for home entertainment.

After 24 straight hours of hacking, eight judges evaluated all 49 prototypes and selected the category winners, five of which were from the Bay Area (Oakland and San Francisco):

· FitCraft (Universal Pictures Challenge and Grand Prize Winner) - FitCraft leverages the power of movie storytelling to enhance your fitness experience, allowing users to gamify their workout to feel the training pressure of their favorite characters from the most thrilling movies.

· MobileMinded (Connected Car Challenges) - The NBCUniversal Commute app gives the audience access to the company’s content on an entirely new platform: the connected car. Drivers are able to learn about the latest show and movie releases from NBCUniversal through voice commands. Members of the MobileMinded team include Veda Rogers from Oakland and Nanette Rosen from San Francisco.

· Flixer (CFC Challenge) - A matchmaker between users and their content! Flixer ingests TV and Movie descriptions and creates personality profiles for them. Users’ personalities are analyzed through Watson Engine and through a custom algorithm matches each user to best content by showing a compatibility percentage. Members of the Flixer team include Lucas Farah from Oakland, Jordan Hart and Diana Galvis from San Francisco and Vishvesh Shah from Santa Clara.