Mogean won big in the Spring 2016 Convergence Innovation Competition (CIC).
“Simply put, this [Mogean's] technology allows marketers to precisely target and understand their customers like never before. They're able to then stretch their budget further, target their prospects and convert them to sales.”
Mogean's win at the Spring 2016 Convergence Innovation Competition (CIC)—thanks to a forward thinking, innovative team—earned an impressive first place in the "Connected Cars" category of this year's competition by creating an innovative platform that bested the other competitors.
Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and Research Network Operations Center (GT-RNOC) worked collaboratively to coordinate the annual CIC competition, which focuses on mobile app development. The goal of the Verizon Wireless sponsored, semester-long event, is to help students create innovative and viable products and experiences with the support of campus resources and industry leaders.
Participants strove this semester to create innovations that fit into the theme of "Connected Living." All entries were subdivided into three connectivity-rich categories: Connected Home, Connected Car and Connected Communities.
During this semester, we joined other participants in attending talks and workshops where we received instruction and hands-on experience in everything from UI design to working with front-end frameworks and back-end coding. Participants were also offered access to two hack-a-thons, plenty of open lab hours and early feedback from judges, industry experts and GT-RNOC research assistants.
At the conclusion of this semester, which was as rigorous as it was rewarding, our team wowed the judges with the creation of an innovative app which offered solutions and services focused on telemetrics, vehicle tracking and safety.
Our app allows businesses to track the location and movements of their customers. Using raw data points provided by the app, businesses can make decisions about when and where to open new locations, predict when customers will visit and understand which customers to target. This digital toolkit enables businesses to drive more effective marketing, loyalty, service delivery and business decisions.
This win certainly didn't come easily. More than 180 hard-working students from a diverse set of majors across campus participated in the Spring 2016 CIC. To be considered, all projects had to have a working end-to-end prototype, a business case for the project and a robust user experience and interface. Teams also had to create a video demonstration of the prototype and document their project process.
In selecting the winners, judges considered the innovation and overall novelty of the concept and the viability for real-world application. They also considered the professionalism of the resulting product, reviewing the presentation of the submission materials including the user interface, video and logo.
Several research and industry professionals served as judges for this competition. One judge, who was particularly impactful on Mogean's win was Greg Shrader, Verizon Telematics Senior Product Manager of Mobile, Web & IoT. Mr. Shrader has over 15 years experience in building product businesses and directing UX design and technical teams. In discussing the potential impact of the product team Mogean produced, Mr. Shrader said, “Simply put, this technology allows marketers to precisely target and understand their customers like never before. They're able to then stretch their budget further, target their prospects and convert them to sales.”
We are thrilled to have been able to play such an active role in this groundbreaking competition, and we're even more thrilled to have been rewarded for our efforts with a first place prize. We look forward to continuing to be active participants in our community and the processes of both education and innovation.