San Jose, California: Team Australia returned to the BattleHack World Finals in San Jose with the air of a successful local Aussie pub rock band embarking on a make-or-break tour to the promised land: America.
They had been lured by the promise of a $US100,000 ($140,000) prize for the winners of BrainTree's 24-hour hackathon, into a pressure-cooker environment — equal parts work, play and bonding — that would challenge their personal resolve and their collective friendship.
Ultimately their bonds could be decided by four men judging whether the team's app boasted useful application of hardware and software, integrated with various APIs, including PayPal and BrainTree, and served a social good. Would their hard yakka and mateship stand up to the test?
The Calm Before The Storm
It was a cold morning in San Jose as our Uber twisted through overpasses and pulled up to the sprawling, leafy PayPal campus.
Inside the Town Hall it was easy to spot the Australian contingent not so much because of John Lyons' towering figure, or his bright yellow warm cycling jacket boasting the "Trading Post" logo, but because of his warm, welcoming smile (rarely a sign greeting a journalist except at hackathons).
The experienced iOS developer briefly described to me how he had spent the preceding days in and around San Francisco, cycling over mountains and weaving through the streets, but was eager to cut his story short in order to quickly convene his teammates and share the purpose of their being here.
It didn't take long for 29 year old, glasses-wearing Christopher Michaelides to assert his role as the group's evangelist, which aligned harmoniously with his broader mandate of strategy and user experience.
The remaining members, 28 year old Andrej Griniuk, in charge of hardware and back-end software development, and Tom Frauenfelder, a Melbourne-based product designer, trusted Michaelides to take the lead.
The group boasted an even balance of skills and egos as Frauenfelder and Lyons chipped in from time-to-time and Andrej, an Australian permanent resident who emigrated from Lithuania, observed silently in the background.
It was their second time at the world finals, after they won the competition in Melbourne earlier this year, with an LED-enabled cycling jacket that flashed red and indicated orange as the rider extended an arm to the left or right.
Last year, they overcomplicated things and dug themselves into holes that they couldn't climb out of, Michaelides said. This year they aimed to keep it simple. They'd spent the last few week tossing around ideas of their own which were eventually trumped at the last minute by a suggestion from one of Frauenfelder's friends: SafetyPin, an iPhone alarm and notification system triggered when a user pulls a small plug out of the headphone jack — like pulling the pin out of a (safe) grenade. It was targeted at females in uncomfortable situations, such as coming home on a train after a night out.
So now they had the idea, what was the strategy?
John: "It's all about making sure we can execute and integrate with the hardware so it does what you need it to do. If you have a fantastic idea and don't have a demo working, it's going to cost you."
Chris: "Your efficiency in hours 18 to 24 is very different to the efficiency at the beginning."
John: "You can only drink so much coffee. [Behind John was a professional barista operation, that could satisfy requests as unique as "cold pressed coffee with almond milk".
Chris: "There is a strategy. We've done hackathons before, so we know how each other works. When Frauenfelder yells at me and I'll yell at Frauenfelder, I still know we're going to be friends at the end. We're already a tight bunch of friends and I'll know that Frauenfelder needs a bit of time by himself to go and work on the problem, so I shouldn't hassle him."
Tom: "Everyone's king of their own domains. They have different specialities."
Griniuk sat in the background, nodding in silent agreement, while the hooded DJ spun Empire of the Sun in the background.
Our conversation, and the music, was interrupted by the commencement of the event, which saw the 12 teams whisked away to the large room where they would spend the next day competing for the $US100,000 prize.
Judgment Day Arrives
Watching these developers present their ideas — they'd slept only a few hours over the past 24 hours to build products that were then being subjected to the biases of a handful of men — I couldn't help feeling as though I'd been transported to a child's beauty pageant.
How was it even fair to compare these efforts? They were all brilliant technologies in their own right so wasn't that enough? Wasn't it cruel to make a potentially life-changing decision based on a five-minute presentation? Couldn't this have a damaging long-term effect?
Unfortunately these questions will have to be answered another day.
Team Melbourne had their work cut out for them as they would be presenting last. There were talking streetlights, self-booking trains, happiness readers, free and faster internets, Alzheimer-patient proof doors and mind-reading caps, and a Siri for nursing. One team, from outside Venice, even hacked a rental car which would lower the windows whenever a baby, accidentally locked inside, started crying from the heat exhaustion. Team Stockholm also pitched a very similar idea where pressing a Bluetooth panic button triggered the arrival of a drone to film the event.
But the Aussie boys arguably had the most polished presentation. Michaelides was on point, repeating the damning statistic that one in four women will be sexually assaulted by the time they graduate. John was on hand to demonstrate the app's different software and hardware features, which kicked in at various points as the severity of the situation escalated. So, initially a user's social network would be alerted to the threat and when they were desperate the user could pull the pin to alert the authorities. It had clearly piqued the judges' interest, who queried the technology and use case at length.
The boys had given it their best shot.
The Final Decision
The third prize, Oculus Rift devices, was awarded to Team Singapore, whose internet-caching system offered real opportunity to lower costs and boost penetration in the developing world. The second prize, a Nest home automation kit, was given to Team Toronto's two-factor authentication system.
During the deliberations, there was a lot of positive buzz about Team Melbourne's presentation.
The introduction for the first prize said it was going to a safety-based app with great tech and commercial potential.
The announcement came: the winner was Team Venice, for the system to lower car windows when babies are trapped inside.
They were also another balanced team, which featured two of the four women who participated in the event.
The aqua confetti rained down, saturating the crowd and all the participants, and in an instant, seemingly washing away all the stress and tension of the past 24 hours. Afterwards, the contestants couldn't wait to celebrate with a beer — or 10.
The Australian team didn't leave empty handed, picking up a prize for best integration of a partner's technology. But in reality they would take away so much more: friendships and stories to last a lifetime.
The writer travelled to Braintree's BattleHack hackathon as a guest of the company.