Global developer community descends on London to ‘reinvent travel’ at Sabre’s London hackathon

Sabre driving innovation in travel with 24-hour challenge for industry’s most creative minds

Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR), a global technology provider to the travel and tourism industry, is hosting a hackathon in London to challenge developers around the world to create new technology and apps that could reinvent global travel.

Destination Hack, which will be held on June 27-28, is a 24-hour, non-stop challenge for developers to create technology for the travel industry that inspires and potentially takes travel to the next level. Participants will be using Sabre Dev Studio APIs, as well as other open technology provider tools, and will compete against the clock and each other for a chance to win £10,000 in prize money.

“Travel is a vibrant, fast-growing and dynamic industry, where technology is having a big impact on the way people travel,” said Greg Webb, president of Sabre Travel Network. “Technology has helped simplify what is a very complex industry and it is also transforming the conventional travel experience, making it more personal, enjoyable and in some cases more creative and fun. It’s the perfect industry for innovation and creativity, and that’s why we are bringing together the best developers from around the world for 24 hours in London. I’m very excited to see what these great minds will produce.”

More than 250 developers from as far as Australia and the Middle East have signed up for the event.

Judges for the competition will include many of travel and technology’s most influential leaders:

• Jon Bradford, managing director, Techstars London
• Susan Standiford, chief technology officer, Zeal Network
• Mark Campbell, chief information officer, Dorchester Collection
• Karl Peterson, senior partner, TPG
• Greg Webb, president of Sabre Travel Network

Sabre’s Destination Hack aims to recognise the breadth of talent and innovation within the travel industry, and will therefore award a host of support packages and acceleration prizes in addition to cash prizes. In addition to the grand prize of £10,000, awards will include:

• People’s Choice – £1,000 (from Sabre)
• Best Wearable Hack – £1,000 (from Sabre)
• Best Use of TripCase APIs – £1,500 (from Sabre’s TripCase)
• Best Twilio Implementation – Raspberry Pi 2 for each team member (from Twilio)
• Most Potential – £500 plus one week of acceleration in Bordeaux, France for the entire team (worth £7,000) (from 33 Entrepreneurs)
• Most Likely to Succeed – £500 plus free API access, support, co-working space, marketing (from Sabre)
• Most Innovative Use of GetYourGuide API – £100 voucher for each member to use on any GetYourGuide products (from GetYourGuide)
• Best Use of GIATA API – Weekend for two in Berlin (from GIATA)
• Online Customer Challenge – surprise challenge with a prize of £1,000
• Best use of the SeatGuru API – £650 (SeatGuru by TripAdvisor)
• Virtual Reality Vision Award – Oculus Rift SDK2 + featured in Timelooper (Timelooper)

“These prizes highlight the creative potential of this event and the broader travel technology industry,” said Webb. “We wanted to create valuable incentives that reflect our commitment to pushing the boundaries of travel as we know it today.”

Contestants are free to use any coding language or outside knowledge that they may have in order to create the best prototype possible. Judges will evaluate hacks based on four factors: technical quality, design, potential and originality. Winners will be announced at the end of the second day of the hackathon, following pitches from each team on their entries.

Destination Hack will take place at Impact Hub Westminster, on 27-28 June 2015. For further information, please visit https://developer.sabre.com/hackathons/london2015 and keep up-to-date with the latest news by following #DestinationHack.