VML has announced the winner of the first-ever Asia-Pacific MACHathon – a creative hackathon competition that invited innovators, big thinkers, and technology enthusiasts to prove the power of MACH technology (Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless).
Kicking off the coding on April 23rd, developers, designers, and creatives came together across six days to create and code products for a real-world brief: “The Next One Billion: Tech & Commerce for Good”. The brief focused on ideas for the coming generation in the diverse region of APAC, with solutions covering a wide range of categories such as sustainability, elder care, air pollution, education, and women-owned businesses.
THE WINNERS
Rhino Partners – Fraud Detection App: Winner of the MACHnificent Award, presented by the MACH Alliance and The Relevance Champion, presented by Voucherify. An AI-driven solution to help elderly citizens identify potential scam calls.
VML Australia – Toko: Winner of The Viability Champion, presented by Maker.Tech and The Ambition Champion, presented by BigCommerce. A world-first commerce solution that makes digitalization simple, intuitive, and fast for women-owned micro-businesses.
Mirum India – Lost & Found: Winner of The Maturity Champion, presented by Stripe. With handicrafts being the 2nd highest area of employment for villages throughout India, ‘Lost & Found’ provides an online marketplace by the artisan community for the community.
VML Thailand – AirFresh: Winner of The Usability Champion, presented by Vercel. ‘The Next One Billion Breaths’ is a solution that mobilizes the Thai community with eco-missions and rewards to help the critical pollution problem in Thailand.
Valtech – Repurpose: Winner of The Integration Champion, presented by Contentful. ‘Repurpose’ is an e-commerce solution to allow the selling of pre-loved clothing online in a fast-fashion world.
VML Hong Kong – EcoInvesta: Winner of The People’s Choice, presented by VML. A crowd investing platform aimed to help accelerate the clean energy transition in the developing world by linking shoppers with clean energy project investments.
Organised by leading creative company VML, in partnership with MACH Alliance, entries were judged by a panel of APAC’s top brand and technology leaders, including:
● Holly Hall, Managing Director at MACH Alliance
● Umesh Phadke, Chief Transformation Officer at L’Oreal
● Michael Garcia, Group General Manager of Technology at The Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels
● Jamie Gagliardi, Head of Marketing, Growth & NZ MILKRUN
● Satirpan Sakkawatra, CMO at SCBx
● Shawn Lim, Editor, Media and Technology, Campaign Asia
On May 9th, the award ceremony was streamed live on LinkedIn and across six in-person hubs across the region. The event was supported by a line-up of top technology partners including BigCommerce, Contentful, Vercel, Voucherify, Stripe and MakerTech.
Though MACH architectures are new to many, VML has been building customer experiences based on these flexible and open MACH technologies for over a decade for clients such as KFC, Woolworths, T-Mobile, DFS, PVH, and Ted Baker.
Hasan Hasnie, Chief Technology Officer, VML APAC, said: “It was amazing what the teams across Asia Pacific came up with in just six days. The level of innovation and creativity in the solutions produced goes to show that by having flexibility in the technology we choose, the possibilities are endless.”
Holly Hall, Managing Director of MACH Alliance, said: “Power of MACH events like VML’s Asia-Pacific MACHathon not only showcase technological innovation that MACH can bring but also inspire collaboration and drive positive change in the industry and beyond.”
The MACH Alliance was formed in June 2020 to help enterprise organizations navigate the complex modern technology landscape. It aims to guide and show the business advantage of open tech ecosystems that are Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS and Headless.
