A service combining GDS-held booking data, live flight information and text alerts - created in just 24 hours - has won THack Singapore.
The team of three, led by Lee Peng of development company Forecepts, used APIs from Abacus, Hoiio and OAG to produce the hack - called WhereIsMyTravelingParent - within the usual restricted time-frame.
A total of seven hacks were presented at WebinTravel this week after reaching the 24-hour deadline at 9am on Monday morning.
Each of the teams had to use at least one of the nine APIs made available to them as part of the competition, the first time Tnooz's THack has been held in Asia, produced in association with WebinTravel and supported by Abacus, Expedia Affiliate Network and Everbread.
The concept behind WhereIsMyTravelingParent is here on Prezi, but essentially is a system where friends and family can be notified of a traveller they may be worried about when they arrive at an airport or hotel or attraction.
It works by tracking the traveller's PNR available through Abacus, matching with live transport data on OAG and then sending text alerts from the tour guides phone to registered users.
A video taken in the early hours of Monday morning demonstrates the idea and, more importantly, that it works.
The judges praised the simplicity of the service, obvious scalability to other group types and the user friendly way it could be applied to various elements of the industry.
Congregate, a system which finds flight and hotel availability and prices, and then matches with point-to-point directions (courtesy of Jeppessen), was highly commended by the judges.