When great minds come together, something great is bound to happen. That was the case for BMW and its end-of-April event, the Sustainability Hackathon. These great minds were none other than software developers and programmers working to improve an issue on the electric car front.
Specifically, participants were to look into a current problem at electric charging stations. Many vehicles enter the station, and stay for a much longer period of time than necessary for charging. Therefore, when another vehicles comes in needing only a small charge, time is used inefficiently.
Could there be a way for the person waiting for a quick charge to communicate with the car owner, unplug the owner for a short while, charge up, and then return the charge? Could it be solved with, perhaps, an app?
And that is what the developers and programmers set out to do, all 80 of them. The result was fifteen apps for smartphones and mobile phones. According to Hacker League, HANON/EV Ping took first place winning $1,000 in vouchers. ChargeNow grabbed second place with the $500 voucher prize, and Chargist snagged third place earning $300 in vouchers.
There were other interesting categories such as "Best Presentation" (winner: ChargeNow), "Best Business Model" (winner: Green Cuisine), and "Most Original Idea" (winner Wastegram).
The event had a decent range of speakers and judges as well. Dirk Rossberg, Head of BMW Group Technology Office USA, made an appearance; ChargePoint's Chief Financial Officer Tony Canova showed, among others. Judges consisted of Kayvan Baroumand (CEO, nestGSV), Sri (Rao) Swarnapuri (Director, Software Engineering, ChargePoint), Tony Mataya (Developer Relations Manager, Twilio), and Damon Lavrinc (Transportation Editor, WIRED). Needless to say, the event yielded positive results from experts in the energy technology field.
At World Imports USA we like to report innovative happenings among some of the brands we carry right in our Jacksonville, FL showroom. The cars are just as exciting as the events. Check out any used BMW cars and SUVs for yourself.
