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Sears hackathon winning app incentivizes children to do chores

The Chore Score was the grand prize winning mobile application at a recent Sears hackathon event based on its fun take on incentivizing children to do their chores.

Sears? Startup + Developer Challenge was held last weekend, with more than 150 participants competing over the course of three days for a chance to have their app ideas brought to life. A total of 41 teams submitted apps for Sears consideration, with the winning team ? Omega Ortega ? receiving a test budget from Sears.

?Sears has always looked for smart ways to offer more integrated retail options that make the shopping experience convenient and rewarding for our Shop Your Way members,? said George Goley, chief information officer at Sears Holdings, Hoffman Estates, IL.

?The Chore Score app would be a fun way for parents to engage their children in the often mundane responsibility of chores and seamlessly connect the mobile and in-store shopping experience.?

Mobile innovation
Sears and other marketers are embracing hackathons as a way to foster mobile innovation within their companies while also strengthening relationships with the technology community.

For Sears, the event was specifically focused on innovative mobile solutions to enhance its Shop Your Way loyalty program and help the retailer bridge the online, mobile, social and in-store shopping experience in a way that is convenient and rewarding for customers.

Apps were judged based on four criteria by a panel of nine judges. The criteria were: Use of Sears? APIs, ability to drive traffic to a mobile site, ability to drive traffic to a store and the user experience.

The Chore Score grand prize winning app enables children to set up a chore list with their parents? guidance, track their progress and earn rewards for doing their chores that can be redeemed within the app, online or in-store. The Omega Ortega team came up with app idea on Saturday morning and executed it in under 36 hours.

The members of the team were Anthony Tanaka, Rance Patterson and Tom Ortega.

Retail integration
Other winners from the Sears Startup + Developer Challenge include Buy with Friends by Cam Urban in the Best use of three or more APIs category; Instagift by Brian Clark in the Most holiday-inspired category and Sears180 by Rauhmel Fox and Jacy Bryla in the Most out-of-the-box category.

?The Sears Startup + Developer Challenge code-a-thon was designed to foster mobile innovations that enhance our Shop Your Way member experiences and strengthen our long-standing relationships with the technology community in Silicon Valley,? Mr. Goley said.

?We?re committed to becoming the world?s greatest integrated retailer and engaging with the great minds of innovation will play a role in that success, which we can do through events like the code-a-thon,? he said.

?Judges evaluated apps based on four criteria: use of Sears APIs, ability to drive traffic to mobile site, ability to drive traffic to store and the user experience.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York