The three winners of ‘SETE Tourism Crowdhackathon’

Three innovative tourism applications excelled in the first SETE Tourism Crowdhackathon held at the innovation hub “Innovathens” located in the Athens Technopolis.

During the weekend of October 17-18, 170 developers in 25 groups, 36 mentors, 16 evaluators, 15 volunteers and 200 visitors to the Open Data | Tech Workshop delivered a message that reached thousands of young people through social media and publicity.

Avant-guard web and mobile apps

Within 48 hours, the teams used open data sets provided by members of the public and private sectors, as well as support and advice offered by mentors to develop avant-guard web and mobile apps that improve tourist services.

The event was an initiative undertaken by the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE) in its aspiration to enhance Greece’s competitiveness and underline the travel industry’s critical contribution to the Greek economy. 

Outline of objectives

The principal objectives of the Tourism Crowdhackathon were outlined by SETE as follows: 

● Generate interest in dynamic people to participate in a group aiming to create products and services for the tourism sector. 

● Establish favorable conditions for youth entrepreneurship, facilitating the founding of a new group or company that can improve the future Greece’s economy. 

● Establish useful tools, innovative applications and high value-added methodologies to evolve and be used by members of SETE and all interested parties, with results that will be freely available for all society. 

● Promote sectors of economic activity associated with tourism through the availability of innovative digital applications to be implemented. 

● Support the Strategic Tourism Planning Procedure for 2021. 

The winning tourism applications are the following: 

1st PRIZE: SmartXplorer

The idea : By applying SmartXplorer, the tourist / visitor of the city can browse to be automatically provided with updates regarding all points of interest to him. It feels as if the city itself is "talking" to the visitor through its very sights! 

How is it done:  By downloading free application SmartXplorer, the tourists gain access to an information network, utilizing the comprehensive operation of micro-tracking technology with Bluetooth low-power interfaces that can map an area and guide them. First, they can select their categories of interest (e.g. Museums, Entertainment, Arts, Shopping etc.) Then, upon reaching a specific area, (e.g. Plaka)  the application  utilizes "Beacons" technology to notify them that they are approaching a specific point of interest (e.g. a museum) and provides them with comprehensive information regarding ticket purchase, loyalty schemes etc. 

S.a.T Team

Nikos Pechlivanidis - UI / UX Designer

Helene Tsiori - App Developer

Vasilis Kiritsis - App Developer

Kostantinos Katsoulis - App Developer

Panagiotis Sainis - App Developer 

2nd PRIZE: Hot City

"One Map. Endless Possibilities"

The application scans the map with the phone’s camera and thus locates points of interest.

The data is gathered from locals.

Team:

Dr. Andreas Komninos

Tzeries Besarat, PhD student

Peace Lagiou, PhD student

George Papadimitriou, MSc student

3rd PRIZE: Village Holidays

Weekend country destinations.

Live traffic data of bookings etc. per region.

The aim of the application is to process data for the promotion of Greek cultural heritage by providing the following:

-Collection of all relevant available data on the web through social media sources.

-Presentation of landmarks in a way that highlights their importance.

-Establishment of a community producing content for advertising areas of high cultural significance, economic interest and exceptional natural beauty. 

RSK Project Team

Giannakis Dimitrios

Vasilopoulos Vasilis

Kostis Konstantinos

Theofilis Giorgos

Kokkinos Panagiotis