Technology developers are being given the opportunity to create a new era of travel tech.
The “Future of Travel” hackathon event ? organised by Finnair, Finavia’s Helsinki Airport and Reaktor sets developers the unique task of developing new services for airline passengers.
This is the first time that an airline, an airport and a technology provider are involved in the Hackathon, which is held in connection with Slush, the start-up event which connects entrepreneurs and tech talent with top-tier international investors, executives and the media.
The Hackathon is an open innovation event where teams of five have 48 hours to develop new ideas and digital innovations based on open data and system interfaces (APIs).
The team that creates the best user experience will be declared the winners, with the prospect of further developing their idea with the support from Finnair, Finavia and Reaktor Ventures. Around 500 developers are expected to take part with over one hundred joining the Air Travel track.
Finnair and Reaktor have made major steps in digitalisation. Evidence of which is seen in Finnair’s new A350 XWB aircraft which features the state-of-the-art Nordic Sky entertainment system with Wi-Fi, as well as the updated mobile apps for android and iOS, including the Apple Watch.
“Finnair and Helsinki Airport have largely common customers, and we believe this is an excellent opportunity to combine our data from our customer interfaces to innovate new services for the various stages of air travelling,” says Jouni Oksanen, Finnair’s Vice President, Digital Finnair.
“For Finavia and Helsinki Airport to be successful in the international competition, it is important that the airport experience is excellent. Our goal is to develop totally new services for air travel, which utilise personalisation and positioning, for example. Attending the unique hackathon shows the forerunner attitude we are known by”, says Heikki Koski, Helsinki Airport’s Vice President at Finavia.
“Reaktor is a great advocate of opening up industries to talented creators from outside said industries. It makes these ecosystems prone to innovations that may have seemed otherwise impossible, or too obvious to be successes. In air travel, we have found two very strong allies in Finnair and Finavia ? who believe in the power of service design and rapid prototyping as much as we do. This industry needs more of that,” says Fernando Leon, an evangelist for Reaktor.aero.
The “Future of Travel” hackathon will be held on November 6-8 at Suvilahti in Helsinki.
Finnair and Finavia’s Helsinki Airport are main partners of Slush, which takes place on November 11-12. Reaktor is key partner of Slush.
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
