Written by Mike Koleno
For the 6th year in a row, our team just wrapped up Solstice Express Day, our annual 24-hour innovation hackathon. Based on the premise of FedEx Day, the idea behind Express Day is to practice what we believe: “There are no bad ideas or stupid questions.” Together, we take this 24 hours to throw out ideas and question what’s possible not just for our clients, not just with technology, but for humanity itself.
In the weeks prior, our entire company from Chicago to New York to Buenos Aires, crowd source project ideas to work on. While, some teams see an opportunity to use technology to simplify an operation or business process here at Solstice, other teams see opportunity to use technology to solve a problem that is either prevalent in a specific domain or to solve problems that align with a specific channel. Regardless of a team’s focus and goals during Express Day, Solstice rolls out the red carpet for Express Day participants. Everything from catered comfort food, to a never ending buffet of snacks to a fully stocked in house bar with even some event inspired mixed cocktails. This year Solstice also introduced a Whiskey Tasting session during the Express Day competition.
Ultimately, Solstice Express Day allows members of our organization to really push the limits of what today’s technologies can support. It encourages collaboration with folks across the firm that might not have the chance to work together that frequently. It exposes us all to new ideas, new ways to approach real-world problems and finally reinforces the belief that any good idea is worth investing a 24 hour window of time to either validate or invalidate in the name of innovation!
The innovations born out of Express Day have even funneled value directly back to Solstice’s business operations, R&D function and more importantly to our current and future clients.
So what did Solstice Express Day 2017 teach us? The most prominent lesson learned was one of reinforcement behind the belief that conversational UX is the brightest star in galaxy of digital channels and technologies. Over half of the ideas presented had a conversational component to it. Slack bots and Alexa Skills dotted the landscape and once again highlighted the power of voice/chat over traditional mobile app user interfaces. Also on display were IoT connected experiences, where vertical gardens and kitchen sinks were connected in order to provide automated experiences that we the current generation simply don’t have the time to be bothered with. Lastly, we were exposed to the latest evolution in Virtual Reality technology and were awed by the applications that could play out with this technology.
The following represents our top 3 finishers and our honorable mention teams and ideas. If you have any interest in hearing more about these ideas or the technologies used, feel free to reach out and we can set up a call to discuss.
1st Place - Space Ventura
Concept - The purpose of Space Ventura was to create a unique VR experience where not only the person using the headset was immersed, but anybody viewing the game or experience could be involved as well. We accomplished this by showing real-time video of the user within the world that they were a part of, and in our game's case, by encouraging collaboration by having different elements of the game only visible to either the user or the audience.
Applications - Real-world applications could include demonstrating a surgery without the need for a cadaver or tools. Similarly, assembling, disassembling, or repairing a car or other mechanical objects could be demonstrated without the need to be near the physical object
Technologies - VR - HTC Vive, Unity + SteamVR, Camera, Capture Card, OBS (Open Broadcaster Software), XSplit, VR Calibration Tool
2nd Place - Dish Watcher
Concept - Dish Watcher solves an age old office dilemma: who left dirty dishes in the sink? It is a POC of combined Facial Detection and Machine Learning technologies that takes on the challenges of a people-oriented, lived-in environment. We wanted to see if these technologies have reached a level that they could handle the detection of people/object interactions in dynamic and uncontrolled scenarios.
Applications - Supply chain monitoring - Package and shipment tracking, tying actions and events to the employee interactions in the chain.
POC version of Amazon Go store - https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011
Bank security - detect weapons from camera and call police automatically so bank tellers don’t have to risk a robber seeing them press the panic button
Retail shelf and inventory monitoring - Detect and measure merchandise movement with camera monitoring
Equipment tracking in factory - Tracking equipment and tools to users in a factory
Factory safety - Shutting down dangerous machinery when a person is detected
Technologies - Machine Learning technologies, OpenCV, TensorFlow and DLib; deployed on an IoT platform, Raspberry Pi + Android Things, using AWS EC2 backend and integrated with Slack.
3rd Place - Smart Vertical Garden
Concept - Smart Vertical Garden is a concept utilizing both IoT and AI technologies to help alleviate and assist the process of planting, growing, and harvesting herbs or other hard to grow plants successfully. The Smart Vertical Garden solution consists of an Arduino Yun, plant lights, water pumps, soil moisture/humidity sensors, air temperature sensors and water level sensors. All of the sensor level data is published to the AWS IoT cloud using the MQTT protocol. The data, once processed, will allow AWS service to send back commands to control the lighting and watering of vertical garden. Example commands can automate tasks including turning on the plant lights or watering the plants. Other commands can also provide the garden owner with push notifications informing them that the garden needs to add water as plant soil moisture levels are currently low. An accompanying Alexa skill was also built to check the status of garden sensor data as well as to use for suggestions on planting best practices and suggested garden maintenance.
Applications - Applications of the concept stretch from the personal garden to the commercial greenhouse - an easy way to automate the growth of any plant or vegetable
Technologies - Artificial Intelligence, AWS IoT, Arduino Yun
Honorable Mention - Emojeans
Concept - Emojeans is an interactive, fun and great tool for live reactions, replaying comments made and emotions felt during big meetings, conferences, webinars, TED talks, or even simply for Scrum ceremonies. Live reactions makes it easy for participants to express their feelings in real-time during a live broadcast. Reactions appear in real-time and disappear quickly so broadcasters and other viewers can get a sense of how people are feeling at different points during the live event/meeting – it’s the digital equivalent to hearing the crowd applaud and cheer. This is truly interactive as broadcasters engage with their audience and respond to their suggestions and questions. Live streaming with reactions is quickly becoming the next big thing in meetings and events, with planners taking full advantage of the benefits of having live video of speeches, activities and even behind-the-scenes goings-on. Emojeans allows planners to respond to viewers’ reactions and comments in real time and lets users display their feelings through emoticons. Viewers can also make comments, which video casters can read and respond to in real-time. For example, speakers can do post-speech Q&As to answer any lingering questions. Organizers can use reactions to measure engagement and gauge how much attendees are enjoying a panel.
Applications - Live events of any size and scale
Technologies - Electron framework that enables the creation of desktop applications through web technologies and soon will be launching a new version for Cisco providers.
