18 July 2016 - Singapore Airlines is anticipating more creativity and excitement when its App Challenge runs for a second time this October.
Based on the theme of ‘SingaporeAir, A Great Way To Fly’, participants will be provided real-world business challenges to build a digital application to enrich the travel experience of the modern traveller.
To up the notch on excitement for the competition, the Airline will make available to participants its application programming interfaces (APIs) related to flight schedule, flight status and check-in for the first time. With these APIs, participating teams can stretch their creativity when developing their prototype apps.
Unlike last year when only students in Singapore-based universities and polytechnics were eligible to take part, this year’s Challenge consists of a new Open Category. Under the Open Category, members of the public who are non-students are welcome to participate. Each team is allowed a maximum of four members.
To ensure participants are on the right track and have a better understanding of the aviation industry, representatives from SIA, as well as renowned industry partners such as Microsoft, IBM and Amadeus, will be mentors to the participants as they develop working prototypes. Other partners and sponsors include TCS, SITA, Salesforce, Red Hat, NUS Enterprise, NUS Institute of Systems Science, Deloitte, Cisco, StarHub, Singtel, Expedia and PayPal.
The competition will kick off on 1 October 2016 with a workshop where the business challenges and development tools from various industry partners will be shared. Prior to that, the Airline will be conducting roadshows in collaboration with various tertiary institutions to promote the competition.
Presentations and judging will be held on 8 October 2016, where teams will be evaluated based on the following criteria: innovation, business value, technical competency, user experience and presentation.
Participants stand to win attractive prizes. The first prize for the Student Category is a trip to Silicon Valley in the US, where they will visit well-known technology companies such as Airbus, Google and IBM. In addition, the winning team may gain an internship stint with SIA. For the Open Category, members of the winning team each stand to win a Singapore Airlines return ticket to any destination that the Airline flies to as well as cash.
“We are very excited to host the SIA App Challenge for a second time. The response for the inaugural competition was extremely heartening, with close to 180 tertiary students participating. This proves that there is keen interest among our young minds to make use of digital technology to further enhance the business development of industries such as aviation. We also hope that many, not just students, will be inspired to pursue careers in the aviation industry through this competition,” said Singapore Airlines Senior Vice President Information Technology, Mr George Wang.
“At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more. We believe in what people make possible, and we believe that it is in the hands of young innovators that these possibilities become real. Integral to this is the partnership of forward-looking enterprises to create their own digital tools, technologies, and ecosystems on the digital platforms and tools that Microsoft built. We are excited to partner with Singapore Airlines for the SIA App Challenge 2016, and look forward to seeing how this year’s participants reimagine the modern travel experience enriched through technology,” said Ms Jessica Tan, Managing Director, Microsoft Singapore, a key sponsor for this year’s App Challenge.
More information on registration, competition details and rules and regulations are available at http://appchallenge.singaporeair.com/. Registration for the competition commences on 18 July 2016 and closes on 19 September 2016.
Media personnel are welcome to get in touch with our Public Affairs Department at public_affairs@singaporeair.com.sg