March 11, 2016 Booz Allen Hamilton + Topcoder Hit SXSW to Discuss Open Platforms, Smart Cities, and Crowdsourcing
SXSW is a madhouse, but in a good way. The music blares, the parties rage, and the technology conversations going on are legitimate. For anyone attending for the first time or participating in some fashion, but looking to stand out, good luck; that can be hard to achieve!
Unless of course you have that ‘secret’ ingredient that has stood the test of time. Through all the tweets, live streams, t-shirt giveaways, Shiner Bocks, and more… one thing will stand out in a place like SXSW, a great story.
Booz Allen Hamilton and Topcoder are set to deliver just that.
If you’re unaware, Booz Allen is a leading provider of management and technology consulting services to the US government in defense, intelligence, and civil markets. They have thrived for over 100 years, which is staggering when you consider the technology advances we’ve seen in the last century. They are also one of the top industry leaders using crowdsourcing at scale to deliver innovative technology faster, and we at Topcoder are proud partners of theirs.
At SXSW, Booz Allen is leading an amazing discussion around leveraging an open ecosystem for app development focused on the important convergence of open source technologies, containerization, crowdsourcing, and beyond. But in true BAH fashion, they aren’t just resting on a cordial panel discussion to prove their point. Instead, they are partnering with Topcoder to launch a live crowdsourcing challenge that will visually showcase how this convergence can help you innovate and create applications faster than ever before.
Smart Cities + Crowdsourcing and Impacting 3.5 Billion People
A topic of discussion that will be ongoing at SXSW is how the Internet of Things will impact life for the more than 3.5 billion people who decide to call a city, their home. Metropolises are becoming sensor-laden and the opportunities to use the new data streams and connectivity IoT provides is more ripe than ever. Couple this with estimates that city populations (on average) will nearly double by 2050, and we can all understand the opportunity before us to use this newfound connectivity to our collective advantage.
So, live, during SXSW, we’re going to do something about this huge opportunity to make city life that much better!
First, at the TechBreakfast Showcase Presented by Booz Allen taking place on Sunday the 13th, we will be gathering application features and inputs from the live audience, focused on a specific smart-city mobile app solution we think you’re going to love.
Next, we’ll be taking the voted upon inputs from the TechBreakfast and launching a LUX (Live UX) mobile app design challenge on Topcoder that same day! We’ll be inviting our Topcoder community designers to register for and compete in a Topcoder challenge to create the mobile concepts, based on the crowdsourced specification.
Finally, right around 24 hours later, Booz Allen and Topcoder will be presenting the submissions back to a large audience as part of the aforementioned SXSW session: Leveraging an Open Ecosystem For App Development.
Going to SXSW is always fun. Discussing the future of technology on panels full of really smart people is a good thing. But a much better thing; a much more important thing is to use a stage like SXSW to do something truly remarkable and to showcase how this convergence of open platforms, open ideas, smart cities, and crowdsourcing can accelerate amazing ideas forward, in just one day.
Traveling to SXSW? Be sure to attend, ask questions, and get involved in helping to create a bold smart-city solution.
If you’re part of the amazing Topcoder Community, be on the lookout for this really fun LUX challenge hitting the platform soon.
And if you want to follow the action, subscribe to our blog and follow us on Twitter where we’ll be sharing updates, images, vids and more.
To our bold partners at Booz Allen. This is why you’ve thrived for over one-hundred years, and why you’ll continue to do so, long into our ‘smarter’ futures. Thank you.
