Reboot Rebels emerges winners of BIAL Genie Hackathon

Bengaluru: Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) - operator of Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (BLR Airport) on Wednesday announced winners of the 'BIAL Genie Hackathon' in collaboration with Microsoft. Over 11,500 teams comprising developers and data scientists from across India participated in the challenge to design innovative solutions using Microsoft Azure services. The hackathon sought to unearth new innovations and solutions that will improve the end-to-end passenger experience at the BLR Airport.

Team Reboot Rebels emerged the grand winners of the hackathon with their innovative application 'Fly Ezy' winning Rs 1.5 lakh as cash reward. The 4-member Reboot Rebels team suggested potential solutions to support the passenger journey from commuting to the airport, internal navigation at the airport, facilitating access to shopping offers as well as alerts for passenger flights to enhance the overall passenger experience.

Other key highlights of Reboot Rebels included features like Internal Navigation which can be integrated into the airport map and shows dynamic movement on the map with real-time insights for passengers using the app. The application was designed to give passengers an easy, efficient, secure, and memorable travel experience. Another useful feature was a Blockchain wallet which allows passengers to be rewarded with coins in their wallet which can later be redeemed to get discount coupons at stores in and around the airport. Team Code Blooded was declared the runner-up with their AI based solution called "AIR DASH" which included various usage of Azure services for AR-based easy navigation through Azure Maps, a Personalized Marketplace developed through Azure Machine Learning Studio including smooth onboarding for ecosystem partners. They won a cash reward of Rs 1 lakh.

The BIAL Genie Hackathon took place between October 2021 to February 2022 to drive technology-led innovation through the development of an app using Azure. Out of 107 shortlisted ideas, 29 prototypes were submitted with a final shortlist of 7 for the finale. The shortlisted teams were provided Azure credits, technical resources, and mentoring sessions by Microsoft subject matter experts (SMEs).

Commenting on this, George Fanthome, Chief Information Officer, BIAL, said, "I would like to thank all participants of the hackathon for the overwhelming response and congratulate the winning teams. This brought together some of the brightest minds in the tech space and has enabled them to create solutions that would have an impact in enhancing customer experience at BLR Airport, by leveraging the next generation of digital technologies. We look forward to seeing the transformative ideas develop into practical actions that will help us realise the vision of a digitalised and smart airport."

The Azure Business Group Lead, Microsoft India, Shivir Chordia said, "As a cloud service company, Microsoft has always been supporting developers all over the world to create solutions which help businesses and organizations transform. We received some very interesting and transformative ideas for the BIAL Genie Hackathon, and I would like to congratulate the winning teams and all the hackathon participants for their efforts."