BT leverages the power of Rapport™ APIs to drive service innovation in a 3 days hackathon

Next Generation Communications Blog

BT leverages the power of Rapport™ APIs to drive service innovation in a 3 days hackathon

By: Gilles Duboué, Marketing Director, Communications and Collaboration, IP Platforms, Alcatel-Lucent

I crossed the English Channel to spend a few days in Ipswich. Not to explore its beautiful port but to participate in the hackathon organized by BT, hosted by its Innovation Hub in Adastral Park (7th to 9th July).

ALU.8.4.15.a.jpgHackathons are flourishing these days. These are fast, dynamic, creative
events in which software developers collaborate intensively around ideation and prototyping with specific Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and on dedicated themes such as mobile apps, internet of things, home automation, connected car, etc.

BT leveraged our Rapport APIs and Rapport Sandbox to run their first hackahon. Rapport is our communications software platform, used by service providers and large enterprises to deliver voice, video and messaging.

The first objective of the hackathon was to educate the BT community about the power of Rapport APIs.  The second objective was to demonstrate how BT’s Future Voice (FV) platform, equipped with Alcatel-Lucent Rapport APIs and opened up to keen BT developers, can easily create new value added services to improve the user experience and generate new revenue streams. The third objective was to test the process for BT’s external hackathons.

ALU.8.4.15.b.jpgMore than 100 BT developers, architects, usability managers and product managers, competing as 10 teams and supported on-site by experts from Alcatel-Lucent, worked for 3 days with passion, energy and a great deal of creativity. Using our Rapport Sandbox’s rich set of WebRTC client APIs and network APIs, the teams defined, designed and delivered many innovative service concept demos and prototypes! The winning teams built a "Safe Home" service prototype which brings together the Internet Of Things (IoT), and more particularly the home connected objects, with consumer communications.

Many senior BT executives visited the hackathon, including Karl Penaluna, President of 21C Global Networks and Computing Infrastructure at BT. Tim Shaw, BT's Director of Voice & Multimedia said "The Hackathon has been a great success. We have driven a change in our understanding of the potential of communications and have built working prototypes that demonstrate the power of APIs. We will use this understanding to drive the value of our propositions to truly exceed what the customer expects from how they communicate."

Thanks to Liam Connors from BT for the outstanding organization of the event! We are now looking forward BT’s next hackathon for external developers.

ALU.8.4.15.15.c.jpg 

From left to right:
G. Duboué (Alcatel-Lucent)
K. Penaluna (BT)
T. Shaw (BT)
R. Baker (Alcatel-Lucent)
 M. Duffy (Alcatel-Lucent)
L. Connors (BT)

 



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