eBay Israel is always on the lookout for the next generation of application developers and what better way to discover new talent than through a Hackathon featuring the country’s most brilliant young minds.
The competition, organized in partnership with Hacking Generation Y and Wix, required contestants to build a viral app using gamification techniques and based on eBay's application programming interface (API).
150 top Israeli hackers participated in the two-part Hackathon. The first part was a 24-hour marathon developing session that took place in Wix's offices. For the next two weeks, the teams relocated to eBay's offices for development and app improvements before presenting to eBay CEO Devin Wenig and senior management team.
The winning application, Guess the Price, was developed by a team of 19-28 year olds from across Israel who took home the winning prize of $10,000 USD. Second and third place prizes included drones and smart watches.
The event was a prime opportunity for eBay to discover talented application developers, while hopefully uncovering great ideas that could become breakthroughs in the realm of Internet shopping.
"eBay has developed patents and ideas for the last twenty years, with many helping establish the company as the world’s leading and most innovative commercial platform,” said Yuval Matalon, eBay Israel's CEO. “Some of these ideas started out as small initiatives, like the ones seen at the Hackathon, eventually becoming incredible solutions that help millions of people around the world.”
Hacking Generation Y was established in 2014 by Michael Matias, a brilliant young Israeli youth passionate about promoting entrepreneurship in young adults through collaborative learning. Since then, the organization has helped more than 500 high school students make their first steps in the tech world through coding competitions around the world.