Hikka Hack 2013 concludes with exceptional results

Following the incredible success of the Colombo Hack in 2012, this year Venture Engine hosted their hackathon in true island style.

The aptly named Hikka Hack was hosted by Citrus Leisure in Hikkaduwa. The 45 teams that entered this year included entrepreneurs from India, Burma and Pakistan. After a filtering session held at Orion City, 11 teams were selected to proceed to Hikkaduwa.

The 11 teams of individuals with the right kind of entrepreneurial spirit worked a marathon 36 hours to develop and craft ideas that could be the next big thing. The event was conceptualised by Blue Ocean Ventures and organised by the Lankan Angel Network and Synergix, who were on hand as mentors to support these start up enthusiasts.  

Emerging with the winning idea was the visiting team from India, Whodat, with a focus on augmented reality applications, in second place was the OMNI channel focusing on video as a messaging medium and in third place was timely a commuter application that leverages on crowd sourcing technologies.

The top 10 plans from the Hackathon go directly into the 2013 Venture Engine program or the LAN platform which will enable these ideas to get their much needed initial funding.

Created by Venture Engine, Hikka Hack is backed by Expolanka and Orion City as platinum sponsors and Dialog as a gold sponsor. The Lanka Angel Network and YourStory were strategic partners of the event, along with Citrus as the hospitality partner and Synergix and SLASSCOM as award partners.

Blue Ocean Ventures Co-Founder Prajeeth Balasubramanium said: “Hikka Hack is about creating viable ideas in an inspiring and conducive environment. We took raw talent and helped them with their thought process to come up with concepts that become a unique and sustainable business model or product.

“We were highly impressed by the passion of these young entrepreneurs and wish them every success in there endeavours.” The three winners of Hikka Hack will automatically proceed to Round 1, of the Venture Engine program in 2013. The final goal of Venture Engine is always about getting the right business funded and empowering entrepreneurs.