Webchutney’s ‘Y! Loo’ wins Yahoo ‘agency hack’ contest

A team from Webchutney cracked the first ever ‘agency hack’ competition organised by Yahoo India outside the US. The 24-hour ‘hackathon’ drew participation from seven agencies from Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi (NCR): Ogilvy, Webchutney, Sapient Nitro, ad2c, Digitas, Indiatimes and Reprise Media.

Agencies had to come up with smart digital and tech-powered solutions to address real life challenges. Teams comprising developers, designers, user-experience specialists, copywriters, media planners and digital strategists got together to build prototype solutions within 24 hours. Participating teams could choose to either build a campaign-based solution or a product-based one using technologies from Yahoo! and others. Eight working prototypes ranging from mobile applications, to companion apps in a living room experience, to social apps for voting and blood donations, were completed in the event.

The Gold was won by the team from Webchutney - Mandeep Singh, Sattvik Mishra, Gurbaksh Singh, Abhishek Saxena and Akshay Raheja – for their utilitarian ‘Y! Loo’ -  a hardware-led solution that uses Yahoo Messenger and allows users to remotely check the status of office loos (and conference rooms). Users can knock on the door if the loo is engaged and it is smart enough to notify the user back, once vacant.

“It feels awesome to have won at the first-ever Agency Hack in India. For this event we wanted to solve a problem that we ourselves face and that’s how we came up with the Y! Loo. We are five people in our team, and only one has been to the US. So a trip to participate in the international hack event is thrilling. We are so kicked about it!” said Sattvik Mishra, from the winning team from Webchutney.

The team from Digitas comprising Akshat Bhardwaj, Prosenjit Som, Sidharth K Dhanda and Vivek R Sharma bagged Silver for a twitter-based ‘Twinority Report’, a tweet investigator that anticipates criminal intentions ranging from drug abuse to suicide to serious national threats by analyzing keyword patterns. The Bronze went to the Sapient Nitro duo of Syed Suffiyan and Parag Gajjar, for a movie viewing companion experience platform ‘Lens’.

The event was one of the initiatives that Yahoo India hosted in the run up to the Yahoo Big Idea Chair Awards, slated to be announced in Mumbai on 9 November.