During the 24-hour development phase, the participants worked in self-organized teams. Students developed many excellent ideas that reflect not only the business needs of Daimler but also solutions relevant for India—such as the app on warning drivers when they don’t focus on the road, and the prototype capable of easing the way for ambulances through traffic.

The winning team “RVCE9.11” developed a creative prototype to help ambulances ease their way through traffic in case of emergencies. Their prototype would use vehicle detection and dynamic traffic mapping that would in turn give information on the most efficient lane to which the cars should move (based on Swarm Logic) to make way for the ambulance. Their motto: ‘Change a lane and save a life’.

The winners of the Hackathon were decided by a panel of Daimler managers. The winning group received a cash prize of INR 200,000 (around US$2,991), the second runner-up team took home INR 150,000 (around US$2,243) and the third runners-up received INR 100,000 (around US$1,500). The teams with the best geek spirit and the team that exhibited maximum teamwork were also awarded INR 50,000 (around US$748) each.

The Hackathon in Bangalore is part of a series of Hackathons being held in Germany, the United States, China and India, which is supported by the DigitalLife@Daimler. The multi-disciplinary DigitalLife@Daimler team is responsible for the company-wide digitalization strategy and implements projects to foster the digital transformation of Daimler. The next Hackathon event has been planned for 5-6 November 2016 in Sunnyvale, California.