Startups and Developers, spend the weekend working on what matters to you – building out your product or idea – and win up to $15K from one of the largest retailers in the US. Sears challenges you to innovate in retail around social, mobile, and content. For startups, there is even more skin in the game with the opportunity to walk away with Sears as a customer. Start early Friday afternoon and get a leg up on the competition at an exclusive API workshop from Apigee on Sears’ APIs.

Agenda

Please feel free to form teams or begin hacking before the start of the event. The Sears team will be available throughout the weekend to discuss your ideas and answer any questions about the APIs.

Friday, January 23: Hackathon Kickoff (Mandatory)

3:00pm-6:00pm	Sears API Workshop with Apigee (Recommended) Grab extra prizes and help us improve the Sears APIs. Join us for our pre-hackathon API workshop with Apigee and get a leg up on the competition.
6:00pm	Registration & Reception
7:00pm	Fireside Chat with Sears
7:30pm	Sears Challenges, APIs, Prizes
7:50pm	Technical Partner APIs and Prizes
8:20pm	Rules & Submissions
8:30pm	Team Formation Bring your ideas to pitch.
9:00pm	End of Day Go home and rest.

Atlanta Tech Village will be open 24hrs from 9am Saturday through the end of the hackathon on Sunday for you to work.

Saturday, January 24: Hackathon, Day 2

9:00am	Late Registration & Breakfast
10:00am	Morning Check-in
11:00am	Coding Begins
12:00pm	Lunch
12:30pm	Code
3:00pm	Snack
5:00pm	Dinner & Sears Check-in
6:00pm	Code
10:00pm	End of Day Participants are free to code into the night.

Sunday, January 25: Hackathon, Day 3

9:00am	Breakfast
12:00pm	Lunch
3:00pm	Submission Deadline
4:00pm	Demos
6:00pm	Dinner & Judging Deliberation
6:45pm	Award Presentation
7:00pm	End of Day

Challenges

Seriously Social

Target Area: Social
Social commerce drives customer decisions and purchases every day. What innovative ways can Sears enhance their desktop & mobile experiences with social media to enrich discovery, increase social proof and create necessary peer-to-peer feedback. How can Sears use social to help its customers make better purchasing decisions? What is the next evolution of social within a commerce experience?

iphone

Mobile Madness

Target Area: Mobile
Mobile commerce is expected to be half of all e-commerce by 2018. How can Sears lead in the mobile space to create unique and powerful mobile experience for its customers? What is the next wave of mobile interaction in retail?

Shopping Cart

Charge up Content

Target Area: Content
Content is king. Great content keeps the customer connected to the brand both during and beyond the shopping experience. How can Sears surface and create content that is meaningful and engaging to its shoppers? What content would best achieve this and help Sears to continue to engage with its members in a valuable way?

Sears APIs

Head to the Sears Developer Site and explore their APIs: https://developer.sears.com/

Sears has the following API categories for you to use for your app:

Product Search
Product Detail
Top Sellers
Deals
Store Information
Local Inventory

Sign up on the Sears Developer Site now – Register before the hackathon starts to get approval and receive your API key to get started.

Download logos, fonts, and images to make your submission look and feel like Sears.

Questions? Email apisupport@searshc.com.

Partner APIs & SDK

Note: All apps must use a Sears API to be eligible for any technical partner prizes.

	Prize: $1,000 For utilizing Apigee 127 to build the best "new" API which mashes up multiple APIs. The new API must use at least one Sears API. Apigee makes it easy for developers to build and manage APIs to expose data and services using Node.js and Swagger, as well as leverage the power of a Backend-as-a-Service with a noSQL database, analytics, mobile-oriented features such as push notifications, user management and more. Apigee-127 is a toolkit for modeling & building rich, enterprise-class APIs in Node.js on your laptop. The focal point of Apigee-127 is the Swagger 2.0 specification for defining and describing an API model. From the Swagger model you can generate clients, servers and interactive documentation for your API. Get started at http://developers.apigee.com For complete information: https://github.com/apigee-127/a127-documentation/wiki
	Prize: iPad Air For the best value of product / product idea developed, using the best utilization of the MomentFeed API. MomentFeed allows national brands to connect with consumers at the local level. By leveraging a brand’s digital assets, MomentFeed enables brands to market more effectively to the audience they want in the communities they serve. The platform delivers on the unique promise of authentic marketing at scale by letting brands connect with consumers at the local level through Facebook, Foursquare, Google, Instagram, Twitter, Yelp, and other channels. The MomentFeed API allows for national brands to search for their locations based on latitude/longitude, city and zip code. The results come ordered by proximity to the user. Sears API Key: VROUGHASWYWKAWMY Kmart API Key: FMAMBOMRLBTKMOZP For more information on the MomentFeed API, refer to our API documentation or visit - http://developer.momentfeed.com/pinsync.
	Prizes: 1st: Apple TV (x3) 2nd: Chromecast (x3) 3rd: Chromecast (x3) For the best personalization usage of the elasticode SDK. You need to use at least one segmentation filter, but the most creative usage which yields the most value to its mobile product will receive 1st place. Elasticode leverages data collection about users' mobile experience into a personalized interaction that best fits to that exact moment, place and settings! elasticode enhances developers and publishers business results, providing them with the power to address specific segments, receive a high resolution point of view and a real-time decision making engine, in a simple and fully controlled way. For complete information, visit our site at www.elasticode.com
	Prize: BKON beacon (x3) All teams who build beacon-enabled apps with BKON beacons, using the BKON Advanced SDK, will receive 3 BKON beacons to take home. We make beacons and the software that makes them smarter. The Beacon Registry™ is a specialized cloud-based management and event-tracking tool that helps organize secure beacon deployments by allowing administrators to name and group beacons and their zones, while keeping detailed descriptions of exactly where each beacon is located. This is especially useful in larger beacon installs, where there may be multiple people deploying. Administrator Management allows owners to delegate hardware management and content updates to team members without handing over full control of their accounts. Configuration Management is a convenient feature that allows for quick review of a beacon’s settings. When moving/replacing hardware, this feature makes the process easy to “clone” a beacon’s settings. The Advanced Software Development Kit (SDK) that comes with the Beacon Registry, gives developers the tools they need to quickly begin scanning for beacons, recognize the relative proximity to them, and react to their presence. The Beacon Registry is also integrated BKON Logs™. This beacon-app event data capture, and the Contextual API allows developers to make use of the advanced analytics features in real-time, including query items like "last visit", "visit frequency", and "average dwell time". Visit http://bkon.com/registry-preview to request access to the BKON Advanced SDK. All SDK/API documentation is available for download there.

Demo Specifications

Demo AV will be available to test on starting at 2pm.

Remember that you only have 3 minutes to demo your application. The judges are basing their scores on this demo so make sure you practice and use your time wisely.

Laptops: HDMI, Thunderbolt and VGA connections

iOS: AirPlay Mirroring with Apple TV (Setup)

Android: Android 4.2 Jelly Bean or later with Miracast (Setup)

If your presentation falls out of the above specifications, please email or connect with the BrandGarage team as soon as possible.

Demo Dos and Don'ts

DO practice your demo.
DO watch the clock. 3 minutes. We will buzz you off!
DO show us your app. DON'T just tell us about it
DON'T waste time - what's important to know?
DON'T troubleshoot on stage, just try to move on.

Eligibility

Participants: Individuals (18 years or older; under 18 with parental permission); Teams; Companies (self-funded startups to Series A).
Countries: Legal resident of the United States
Exclusions: Employees of Sears or its affiliates

Requirements

All submissions must be made by 3:00pm, January 25th, or the alternative deadline published on the day.
All submissions must make use of at least one of Sears APIs (excludes Parts Direct API).
All submissions must fit into one of the challenge categories.
All submissions and demos must include a working (coded) prototype (mobile or software application, website, etc.). No slideware permitted.
All submissions must be demoed live to the judge panel between 4pm and 6pm on January 25th.
All submissions must keep to the 3-minute time parameters outlined for demos.

Prizes

$15,500 in prizes

Grand Prize

$10,000 check for the best submission across all challenges
Year subscription to GraphicStock (valued at $588)

Runner-up Prizes (3)

Three prizes of $1,500 checks for runner-ups across all submissions
Year subscription to GraphicStock (valued at $588)

Apigee Prize

$1000
For utilizing Apigee 127 to build the best "new" API which mashes up multiple APIs. The new API must use at least one Sears API.

Elasticode Prize (2)

1st: Apple TV (x3), 2nd: Chromecast (x3), 3rd: Chromecast (x3)
For the best personalization usage of the elasticode SDK. You need to use at least one segmentation filter, but the most creative usage which yields the most value to its mobile product will receive 1st place.

MomentFeed Prize

$100 Amazon Giftcard (x5)
For the best value of product / product idea developed, using the best utilization of the MomentFeed API. Submission must use at least one Sears API.

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

How to enter

Register to attend the SEARS Retail Hackathon on Eventbrite.
Sign-up on ChallengePost to post questions and work on your submission.
Find teammates or work by yourself.
Select one or more challenges to enter your submission under.
Register for a Sears API key.
View and select additional API partners for a chance to win additional prizes.
Submit your working (coded) prototype on ChallengePost by 3pm on Sunday, January 25.
Demo live in front of the judges 4-6pm on Sunday, January 25.

Judges

Andy Chu
DVP, Mobile & Community Experiences, Sears Holdings

Casey Goddard
Director, Product Management, Sears Holdings

Carlton Hill
VP Device Operations and Developer Services, AT&T

Erin Rosintoski Lewis
Community Manager, ATV

Blake Patton
Managing Partner, Tech Square Ventures

Pete Santora
Innovation Catalyst, ATDC

Judging Criteria

Audience Engagement
40% - Does the solution increase visits or conversion to Sears.com or its mobile apps?
Feasibility & Scalability
30% - How market-ready is the solution? How practical is it to execute against in market? Is there a working prototype?
Creativity & Originality
30% - Is this truly an original solution that would help showcase Sears as an Innovator Will this create excitement among the shopper community?

Location TBD	Public
$15,500 in prizes	67 participants

SEARS Retail Hackathon