Code for Good Hackathon | GetSpeedBack creates Winning Solution

To create a winning solution in Palm Beach Tech’s Code for Good Hackathon, team GetSpeedBack attacked a big problem that food banks and other social impact agencies are having delivering to their home-bound clients.

These agencies often rely on volunteers to help make deliveries, and that becomes tougher during a pandemic when a large portion of their volunteers are seniors as well as others that need to stay home. For hunger-relief nonprofits like Feeding South Florida, it could become an administrative headache when a deliverer can’t work and the volunteer’s address list had to be divvied up.

 “So there’s a shortage of volunteers and an increasing number of meals that need to be delivered… We figured there’s got to be a better way to do it,” said Matthew Meadows, who won the hackathon with team member Mihai Oprescu.

Team GetSpeedBack came up with a solution that “optimizes routes for each driver, and all they have to do is click on a link in a text message and follow the directions, minimizing the administrative problem and saving volunteer hours on the road so they can more efficiently help more people,” said Meadows, who Co-Founded the Boca Raton HR-tech startup GetSpeedBack.

You can see Team GetSpeedBack’s web-app work from the hackathon here.

In all, 19 teams competed in the Palm Beach Tech Hackathon presented by Office Depot on October 23-25. “While Team GetSpeedBack emerged the big winner, it was really the greater South Florida community that won,” said Palm Beach Tech President & CEO Joe Russo

“Amidst the pandemic, we were able to bring positivity to our community by supporting two local nonprofits, Feeding South Florida, attacking hunger relief, and Gift of Life, a bone marrow registry,” said Palm Beach Tech Vice President Nikki Cabus. “With Palm Beach Tech’s recent expansion to support the entire region, we were excited to see that over 40% of our hackers were from Broward and Miami-Dade counties. The top three cities represented were Delray Beach, Miami, and Pompano respectively, and 1 on every 4 being a woman in tech.”

 

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1st Place, $2,500 prize: GetSpeedBack

• Solution: Route optimizer for delivery drivers, minimizing administration and saving volunteer hours
• Team Members: Matthew Meadows, Mihai Oprescu
• See Presentation | See Github

2nd Place, $1,500 prize: Sunny Six

• Solution: Application that aims to connect people in need with healthy food, simply and securely
• Team Members: Fernanda Rodriguez, Joy Bushnell, Dan Mathison, Hanadi Alotaibi, Nic Maltais, Earl Cameron
• See Presentation | See Github

3rd place, $1,000 prize: Forij

• Solution: Eco-system for food donors, volunteer drivers, and Feeding South Florida, accelerated by rewards program
• Team Members: Kavin Kannan, Camila Alfonso, Douglas Rodriguez
• See Presentation | See Github

Click Here to View All Teams

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Mark Volchek, a venture capitalist with Las Olas Venture Capital, said: “As a first-time judge, I was really impressed by the quality of work put forth by all the teams.  It was exciting to see how much the teams were able to accomplish in such a short time – a great testament to the emergence of the South Florida Tech ecosystem!”

Michelle Bakels, a coach from NextEra Energy, agrees. “This year’s hackathon participants raised the bar! Overall, our teams showed the most complete and well-designed solutions of any hackathon to date. I was really impressed by how uniquely each team approached their problems in order to focus on this year’s theme, Code for Good.”

Bakels and over a dozen coaches worked closely with the teams during the 24-hours to help them build the very best versions of their projects. “Coaches are there to support teams and make sure everyone leaves with something they’re proud of, so it’s a great role and definitely something I love doing,” Bakels said.

This was the 5th annual Palm Beach Tech Hackathon, and organizers had to take the annual event virtual for the first time. But Meadows said the virtual experience was flawless and moving around the virtual rooms to collaborate was easy. Oprescu, who was part of the Office Depot team that won the Palm Beach Tech hackathon two years ago, also said the set up worked well but “nothing beats the in-person experience of a hackathon.”

Palm Beach Tech hopes that new friendships were made and collaborations continue in the weeks and months to come. It’s always a hope that some teams will continue working on their ideas born during a hackathon – for the greater good.

As for Team GetSpeedBack, Meadows said:  “We’re hoping to get in touch with Feeding South Florida to see if we can actually help them with real world implementation. The whole point of the hackathon is to benefit them in some way, so we’d like to see it through, if we can.”