March 2, 2017 TnH Global

flydubai and HackMania launch second Air Travel Hackathon

Airline announces boot camp webinar for young airline technology developers

Dubai-based flydubai today announced its second Air Travel Hackathon in association with Hyderabad-based tech startup HackMania. The Hackathon, which is supported by the E-Cell of IIIT-Hyderabad, will be held at the IIIT campus in Hyderabad. In addition, flydubai will for the first time organise a boot camp webinar prior to the Hackathon to provide young developers with information about airline technology.

The Hackathon will focus on developing products for enhancing air travel and customer experience. The applicants will be selected based on their knowledge of the coding language and their past experience of participating in a Hackathon.

Commenting on the announcement, Ramesh Venkat, Chief Information Officer at flydubai, said: “We are pleased to announce the second Air Travel Hackathon in association with HackMania. Last year, we saw young developers create innovative products at the Hackathon and we were happy to see such high standards of creativity. In fact, flydubai’s Development Centre in India is currently working on developing some of the ideas into fully-fledged products.”

“This year, we have gone a step further towards working alongside the technology community in Hyderabad. The boot camp webinar will provide young developers with greater insight into the importance of technology in the aviation industry,” he added.

Over 400 applicants registered to participate at the first Hackathon and over 100 developers were selected to attend. The winning team FlyBot, an all girls’ team, won a trip to Dubai including three nights’ accommodation as well as the opportunity to explore another destination on the flydubai network. This year, the winners of the Hackathon will be offered an internship at flydubai’s Development Centre in India (IDC) in Hyderabad and will have the opportunity to incubate their ideas at the flydubai Aviation Research Centre.

“We are glad to provide a platform for flydubai to engage even more closely with the local developer community through the addition of the boot camp webinar. The mentorship that will be provided by experts from flydubai and other fields related to travel will help the participants strategically identify areas in air travel that need to be worked on,” said 23-year-old Rajat Shahi, Founder and CEO, HackMania.

The boot camp webinar will be held Monday 13 March 2017. The Hackathon will start at 09:00 (IST) on Saturday 25 March 2017 and will end at16:00 (IST) on Sunday 26 March 2017 and will be held at the same venue. Developers can register by Wednesday 22 March on Hackerbay.co and those who are shortlisted to participate in the Hackathon will be notified by SMS and email.

flydubai currently operates five flights a week to Hyderabad from Dubai in addition to flights to seven more destinations in India including Ahmedabad, Chennai, Delhi, Kochi, Lucknow, Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram. The airline operates a single type fleet of 58 Next-Generation Boeing 737-800 aircraft. It has built a network of more than 90 destinations served by more than 1,700 flights a week operating out of Dubai International Airport (DXB) and Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC).