Some 50 developers, hackers, designers and idea generators battled it out in Charlottenburg from Friday evening until late Saturday night in the Berlin leg of the BeMyApp Olympics. The Ahoy! co-working space was sold out for the event.
After pitching and forming groups on Friday night, the nine teams spent their weekend coding, designing and developing a complete app in the space of just 48 Club Mate-fueled hours, with the winner being entered into a global competition against entries from events in San Francisco, New York, Dallas, London, Paris and Zurich.
The teams presented their apps to a jury of mobile phone industry professionals – as well as the rest of the audience – in the jam-packed basement cinema at Ahoy!.
And the winners were…
Fifth place went to betataste.me, a marketplace where apps can be tested. Developers can upload apps which are still in beta testing for betataste.me users to try out and review before giving direct feedback – an idea sure to be useful for Berlin’s emerging startups.
In fourth place was Top Trumps game app TrumpMates. Based on the classic card game, TrumpMates turns the people you follow on Twitter into cards to play with against fellow users. And it’s more than just a game – it’s a fun and unique twist on finding new Twitter users to follow.
Third place – as well as the Coolest Pitch award – went to Frapny, short for Finding Really Awesome People Near You. Using geolocation, Frapny allows users to meet when they are close to each other by uploading a short 140-character description about themselves or what they’re interested in talking about, essentially creating their own meet ups while on the go.
Landing in second place, and getting the nod for Best Execution, was ToothBrushy, a iPad game designed to help children learn the importance of oral hygiene, complete with a virtual sticker book to allow children to collect rewards as they progress through the game.
And the big winner was…
Unlock Your Brain, take a bow! Another service aimed at children, the Android app – which also took home the Stickiness and Innovation awards – works as a timer to interrupt children with maths equations while they’re gaming on a smartphone. Parents can set the timer intervals, the level of difficulty and how many questions their kids have to answer correctly before continuing on with their game – hopefully a blessing for mums and dads trying to curb their children’s gaming addictions!
After the winners were announced, DJ Daddy Hemingway took to the make-shift stage to play old-school tunes while the winners (and runners-up) celebrated with beer, pizza and pingpong upstairs.
Voting is now open, so don’t forget to vote for your favourite app (or city!) in the global competition.