Hacking On a Plane From Hong Kong to London—Hack Horizon
On May 2nd, I flew into Hong Kong from Taipei to join Hack Horizon—the first ever travel tech hackathon on a plane.
32 people were selected out of approximately 700 applications, judged based on talent, experience, passion, cultural fit and travel industry knowledge. Despite that most of us haven’t met each other prior to the hackathon, we got together with one mission—to redefine the travel tech industry with radically new ideas.
The event started in Hong Kong, where we pitched idea and formed teams. The next day, we continued hacking at Regal Airport Hotel.
Before we left Hong Kong, we were given permission to do user research at Hong Kong International Airport. As a user-centred designer, I couldn’t be happier that we were given time to “get out of the building” to validate our ideas!
Then we boarded a British Airways plane to London and we were literally hacking at 40000ft!
In London, we worked on the prototype and the pitch at TravelTech Lab, and received pitch mentorship to prepare us for the pitch finals.
So, what did we build?
I teamed up with Alex Chia and Norman Ng to build LuxExpress—Uber for Airport Luxury Duty-free.
Norman was the brain behind the business model and the pitch. Alex was the main programmer, hustling his way through ReactJS and all the APIs. I was the designer that created the UX, UI and presentation designs.
What LuxExpress does:
- help shoppers get the best priced luxury goods in the world
- help airport duty-free shops increase revenue
- help travellers earn extra income to fund and upgrade their travels
It was a fierce competition at the pitch final! Every team had a solid presentation. I was nervous and eager to know who the winners were.
When they announced the winners, I was pleasantly surprised. LuxExpress was selected as the Runner-up of Hack Horizon!
If you’re keen to learn more about LuxExpress, please reach out to any of the team members. You can reach me at jenny@jennyshen.com.
Hack Horizon is truly a one-of-a-kind experience. Thanks to all the sponsors, judges, partners, industry experts and mentors that made this event possible.
Of course, huge thanks to the organizers: Johannes, Kosta, Kristy and Sandra, who spent 18 months to make their dream a reality, and for creating such an immersive and great experience for us!
Hack Horizon has shown the whole industry that it doesn’t take months or years to develop ideas and solutions. When you get talented and driven people in one place, with a mission, amazing things can happen.
We hope to continue hacking on LuxExpress, so follow along to stay tuned!
