The virtual hackathon 'sources' new ideas and prototypes for voice assistants
The best entries will be rewarded with tickets for the FIFA Women’s World Cup Final
UPDATE: Winners announced at the bottom...
“Which player scored the winning goal in the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup Final?” Questions like these can today be easily answered in few seconds by voice assistants and other emerging technology without any need to perform a text search with your smartphone.
With this in mind and as technology becomes increasingly important in our everyday lives and how fans around the globe consume football, FIFA continues to seek new ways to engage with fans and the wider football community through digital technology, as well as exploring how to democratise innovation in football and create better experiences and services to enhance the overall fan experience.
The proliferation and usage of voice assistants (e.g. Amazon’s Alexa, Apple`s Siri and the Google Assistant) is sharply rising. Research estimates that there will be 8 billion digital voice assistants in use by 2023, up from the 2.5 billion assistants in use at the end of 2018.
In order to explore future opportunities and relevant experiences, developers and fans are invited to take part in a virtual competition (“hackathon”), which will look at innovative ways to integrate voice assistants with football events and data. The briefing? ‘Give voice to football’.
There is a fantastic prize on offer, too, with the winners of the two tracks of this challenge set to each receive two tickets to the final of the FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019 in Lyon on 7 July.
The two tracks of virtual hackathon looks for the best protoype as well as for the best idea. It is hosted on Github and will run from 09:00 CET on 28th May to 23:59 CET on 10th June.
Get creative now and participate here.
The winners of the two tracks will be determined by a panel of judges selected by FIFA and Github. Submissions will be judged on the following criteria:
Fit to the topic
Quality and innovative nature of the product idea/demo
Utility of the product idea/demo
Compelling use of FIFA data/APIs
UPDATE: The "prototype track" explained above was won by Github user haitanle who has developed a working Alexa Skill using the API provided that gives useful information on FIFA Women's World Cup France 2019 games and also provides historical news from past tournament editions. The "idea track" was won by Github user alejandrocanducci77 who has has provided a very innovative solution to improve the ticketing experience through voice assistants. The winners were selected by a FIFA jury and each won two tickets for the FIFA Women’s World Cup final in Lyon.