The annual LAUNCH Festival offers startups a chance to
receive valuable product feedback and funding. This year’s festival on March 4th-6th
in San Francisco will be preceded on March 2nd-4th by the
first-ever LAUNCH Hackathon,
presented in partnership with Angelhack.
It offers developers and designers an opportunity to present innovative app
ideas, with the winner receiving $50,000 in investment money or $20,000 in
cash. Registration is completely free, and each participant will also receive a
complimentary Festival Pass.
As a sponsor of the event, the Plantronics Developer
Connection (PDC) is offering its own unique prize package for the
winner who best integrates Plantronics headsets into their winning app or
service, using the Spokes SDK or other technologies.
Entries will be judged based on equal parts: Idea, Marketability and Execution.
Here’s what you could win from Plantronics:
- $1,000
- Space to demo the winning solution at
the PDC "Demo Pit" table at the LAUNCH Festival.
- Voyager Legend UC
headsets for each team member.
The Demo Pit prize is a significant one,
because members of the LAUNCH Festival Grand Jury will pass through the Demo
Pit area to select two to four teams to go up on stage and present their
solution. (Here is some background on
requirements for the Demo Pit.)
Presenting your solution on stage will give
you a shot at the LAUNCH Hackathon grand prize-- $50,000 in investment
money or $20,000 in cash. To get a taste of what it
will be like to present your creation on stage, here’s a video from 2012
showing the BlackLocus presentation.
Getting
Started
Your first step is to register
yourself or your team on the LAUNCH Hackathon site. (And remember--
registration is free.)
Then you will need to register
at the Plantronics Developer Connection, allowing you to download the Spokes
SDK and also make use of the rich collection of code samples, how-to
articles, case studies and videos found there.
One tutorial that might spur some creative thinking is
Cary Bran’s blog entry, How
to Get Your Voyager Pro UC to Tweet.
One of
the newest developments in communications is WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication),
allowing browsers to communicate with each other using voice calling and video
chat without the need for plug-ins. In another tutorial, Cary Bran describes
how to get started in Integrating
Plantronics Call Control with WebRTC.
How Threewill Used the Spokes SDK to Create a Groundbreaking App
Providing
real-time customer information for salespeople, pulling automatically from
backend CRM systems when a call is made or received, has been a significant
goal for some time. Threewill solved this problem with Popcorn, and the Spokes
SDK plays a significant role.
Using
the Plantronics Spokes SDK Caller ID API, Popcorn can identify the caller’s
number and then match it against the caller’s profile in systems such as
Salesforce. Information on the customer and their past interactions pops up
automatically on the salesperson’s screen, allowing them to direct the call and
make real-time notes that are then saved in Salesforce.
To
get a better idea of how Popcorn works with the Plantronics code, view this
video. You can also read a complete case
study here.
The LAUNCH Hackathon Challenge Awaits
The
LAUNCH Hackathon
begins in San Francisco on March 2nd. Start using the Plantronics
links in this article to help you develop an inspiring solution that will win
you $1,000 and time at the Plantronics Demo Pit table. You might be the lucky
one to make it onto the main stage of the LAUNCH Festival, and the even luckier
one who wins the LAUNCH Hackathon grand prize of $50,000 in investment money or $20,000
in cash.
Note: We will be updating this article after the LAUNCH Hackathon
to profile those who entered the Plantronics challenge.
Summary
of Key Links:
