Recently, on 18th and 19th of May 2017, Amsterdam played host to 15,000 attendees at The Next Web Conference, one of the biggest tech events across Europe. The two-day event also included one of the largest annual hackathons in the region, TNW Hack Battle, themed the Battle of the Sensors this year. With Internet of Things at its core, the hack battle invited 200 developers and designers to spend 36-hours on developing prototypes of applications based on the API’s of their partners and data points such as waste measurement, foot traffic, speech recognition, energy use at the event, etc — thanks to the grid sensors placed all over the venue. Each participant of the hackathon gave a 60-second pitch about her/his prototype after which 10 finalists presented their creations to a jury of expert hackers to vie for €2,000 cash prize. While .FUN turned out to be a big hit amongst the participants at this hackathon, other new domain extensions by Radix also saw interesting use cases making it to the top 10 finalists. In this post, we take a look at those unique projects that impressed the jury and everyone else at TNW Hack Battle 2017!

BIKINGDRUNKIS.FUN

This project is as unique as it sounds and is especially relevant in the context of the Netherlands since it revolves around beers and biking! The project entails that your bike be fitted with built-in seat sensors and IBM Watson, which will automatically turn on brake lights for your safety when you are riding after having a few beers. In addition, it will work on GPS to locate your bike for you. So, in case you can’t ride and park it somewhere that you might not remember of the next day, the (GPS) lights will guide!

SENSORS.FUN

Love sensors? Even if you don’t, you will like sensors.fun! This crowdsourced directory of data is open to all users. Play around with sensor data as you pick data visualization of your choice or select any sensors from the directory for interesting info or your research.

SAFEEVENT.SPACE

As the domain name suggests, this project intends to make event spaces safe by using an RFID tag. With this, the venue employees are well informed of what’s going on across all enclosures at the venue without being there physically. What’s more, if there’s an emergency, an alert will be sent via SMS. An added feature is that the user need not ‘log in’ to use this service hence there’s no threat of personal info being shared anywhere.

ROCK-ON.SPACE

Want to party after the after-party? Rock-on.space has you covered! With sensor boxes leased by local bar and club owners, this innovative product will let you know the music, crowd and vibe at these places. So, no matter what mood you are in, you always have a rock-on space to head to! What’s more, you can even fingerprint the music you’re searching for and send the song to any local bar to play it for you when you get there!

TOONBNB.HOST

This project saves Airbnb hosts some serious buck on their energy bills. The app shuts off lights and appliances that visitors may have left on, accidentally or intentionally. The app also rewards Airbnb guests who are energy-conscious with a cash benefit basis the amount of saved power costs.

YOURFIFI.ONLINE

Have a pet? This app is for you! When travelling in an airplane with your pet, attach a smart device to your pet carrier and keep a track! Get updates on their movement, temperature, and sound. It also has a GPS tracker in case the carrier gets misplaced. Awesome, isn’t it?

QUICKLY.PRESS

A great app for the elderly or anyone who needs the comfort of knowing that help is available and within reach. Quickly Press is a smart panic button one can quickly press to send text and audio messages as well as the GPS location to friends, family, government or other services. There’s also the option of scheduling who would get the message within a particular time slot, so family members can take turns as per their availability to assume the responsibility of attending lest something should happen.

BIKEBUSTER.ONLINE

Never let your bike be stolen! With this app and the sensors on your bike, you will be alerted if your bike happens to move while you’re not on it. The app will send you an SMS and the current GPS location of the bike too. Ride away! This article is also published on Medium.