Hermes hosts home delivery hackathon
A multi-platform live chat application and an enhanced GPS tracking solution designed to drive down fuel consumption were among ideas concocted by university students at a hackathon in Leeds organized by delivery company Hermes. Five student teams from Leeds Beckett University competed last Wednesday (29 March) against specialists from Hermes’ Leeds-based Innovation Lab, in an attempt to create “the next big delivery solution” in just six hours.
The winning group, Team 404, devised an application to streamline the shipping process for myHermes customers, including increased functionality when printing multiple shipping labels. Team 404 also look at how the application could also potentially integrate with external APIs, belonging to organisations such as eBay and PayPal.
Runners up on the day (The Wolf Hack) focused on bringing Hermes’ ‘Live Chat’ platform to a number of different devices, including smartphones and digital assistants such as Amazon Alexa.
The judging panel was formed of: Carole Woodhead, CEO of Hermes; Chris Ashworth, CIO at Hermes; Zoe McClelland, Head of Business Strategy, Operations and Enterprise at Leeds Beckett; and Sean Davis, Technical Consultant from Google, who flew in from Switzerland specifically for the event.
David Turner, Head of Innovation at Hermes, said: “Taking part in events like this gives us access to students who are thinking outside the box. They’re not constrained and we see some ideas that we would never have thought of.”
Click here to see a YouTube video of the hackathon.
