NCR Corporation, a global leader in omni-channel solutions, sponsored one of North America’s largest hackathons, HackGT, from October 13-15 hosted at Georgia Tech. More than 1,000 student developers from around the country—selected from a record-setting group of more than 3,000 applicants—tested their creativity by developing cross-industry solutions and applications to create better consumer experiences.

Twenty hackathon teams became the first third-party users of NCR’s open API on the Omni-Channel Decision Support Platform, which will be made available to selected NCR partners and third-party developers via a ‘Developer Portal’ next year.

Held in Atlanta—the “Silicon Valley of the East”—HackGT challenges young developers to create new industry solutions such as ordering and delivering, smart promotions and offers, and advanced analytical models based on hypothetical transactional data.

This was the first year NCR sponsored this event, in which 20 teams of up to four students explored potential solutions using the ODSP and hypothetical data sets created by NCR for the students to use as catalog and transactional data.

The winning team developed a mobile commerce application that uses NCR’s Ordering API, Catalog API and analytics to make mobile ordering easier for consumers. Members of the winning team that developed the app will each receive an iPhone X and be offered a summer internship with NCR’s software division.

“We’re always fascinated by what the next generation of software engineers and developers can create, and their solutions this weekend dramatically exceeded all our expectations,” said Eli Rosner, CTO and Head of Software Product Management, NCR. “We were glad to be part of such a landmark event for the software industry, which aligns with NCR’s focus on innovation and building the careers of emerging software engineers.”

The ODSP is a cloud-based technology platform that augments and accelerates NCR solutions. It uses open, cloud-based APIs that allow NCR and other applications to seamlessly integrate and enable innovative consumer engagement solutions that span channels, applications, and industries. It will also provide rich data and analytics capabilities to provide a holistic view of consumer interactions and help drive smarter, faster business decisions.