Service to keep track of your travelling parents wins THack Singapore

October 18, 2011 By

A service combining GDS-held booking data, live flight information and text alerts – created in just 24 hours – has won THack Singapore.

The team of three, led by Lee Peng of development company Forecepts, used APIs from Abacus, Hoiio and OAG to produce the hack – called WhereIsMyTravelingParent – within the usual restricted time-frame.

A total of seven hacks were presented at WebinTravel this week after reaching the 24-hour deadline at 9am on Monday morning.

Each of the teams had to use at least one of the nine APIs made available to them as part of the competition, the first time Tnooz’s THack has been held in Asia, produced in association with WebinTravel and supported by Abacus, Expedia Affiliate Network and Everbread.

The concept behind WhereIsMyTravelingParent is here on Prezi, but essentially is a system where friends and family can be notified of a traveller they may be worried about when they arrive at an airport or hotel or attraction.

It works by tracking the traveller’s PNR available through Abacus, matching with live transport data on OAG and then sending text alerts from the tour guides phone to registered users.

A video taken in the early hours of Monday morning demonstrates the idea and, more importantly, that it works.

The judges praised the simplicity of the service, obvious scalability to other group types and the user friendly way it could be applied to various elements of the industry.

Congregate, a system which finds flight and hotel availability and prices, and then matches with point-to-point directions (courtesy of Jeppessen), was highly commended by the judges.

Related posts:

  1. Tnooz THack moves east to Singapore
  2. Abacus Hack Day Singapore – the winner is…
  3. Abacus Hack Day Singapore – why and early stages
Filed Under: Thack, TLabs Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
Kevin May About Kevin May

Kevin May is editor of Tnooz. He joined as a co-founder in August 2009 after spending nearly four years as editor of UK-based business publication Travolution.

Passionate about the business of travel and the internet, Kevin played a major role in establishing Travolution in print, online, events and with an annual awards programme, as well as becoming a regular speaker and moderator at industry events.

Prior to Travolution, Kevin was web editor at Media Week (UK) and also worked in regional newspapers for two years at the Essex Enquirer. He started his career in journalism at the Police Gazette at New Scotland Yard in London.

Comments

  1. Junda Ong (@samwize) says:
    October 19, 2011 at 5:23 am

    Congrats to Forecepts! It is a really nice idea made simple by having the tour leader “checking in” via a phone call. I posted a similar post at Hoiio Dev Blog: http://devblog.hoiio.com/2011/10/where-is-my-travelling-parents-wins-thack-singapore/

  2. Junda Ong (@samwize) says:
    October 19, 2011 at 5:27 am

    And to Kelvin May, you have organized a great hackathon!

    Beautiful venue at Shangri-la resort, delicious lunch/pizzas/etc, and very well taken care of with requests such as red bull!