We recently had a chance to sit down with HICap community board member, Alan Solidum and talk to him about his experience as a Top Finalist in Campbells API competition, Hack The Kitchen.
HC. Hey Alan… How was NYC?
AS. Amazing! I had a great time… Plus I got to finally meet one of the original cofounders of HICap, Ryan Kanno who moved to NYC to work for a finance company. I also went to DC and hung out with HICap ex-president, Austen Ito who was accepted in Hungry Academy last year and now works at Living Social.
HC. How are they doing?
AS. Awesome… They participated in Startup Bus and also got the Mashery Best Use of API Award in API Hack Day NY… But they were more interested in hearing what’s going on with HICap and where we’re headed.
HC. Where is HICap headed?
AS. Oh that would be a long discussion but let’s just say a lot of exciting stuff is coming up…. including Arduinos, Raspberry Pis, photography, hackathons, fun workshops and much more.
HC. So why did you fly out to NYC?
AS. Campbells released an API for their over 3000 recipes and put a call out to developers to create apps to answer the question “What’s for dinner”? It was a national contest and they received over 150 applications all competing for a $50K winning prize. Our two man team, Antisocial Labs, made the finals and was invited to present in Google NYC along with 5 other teams.
HC. What was your idea?
AS. Our idea was called Recipe Remixed. So basically have you ever looked at a recipe and wished it was different or maybe there was vegetarian option or maybe a healthier option. So not only do we allow you to search through Campbells recipes but also tweak them to your unique tastes or “remix” these recipes. Our platform encourages users to create, collaborate and communicate with each other… And since our users are remixing recipes we like to call them Dish Jockeys or DJs.
HC. Who else was on your team?
AS. Mark Guillermo, designer extraodinare at Wall-to-Wall studios. This is probably the first time I’ve worked with a designer this early in the process and I honestly believe we wouldn’t have made it as far as we did if not for his user experience design and aesthetic eye.
HC. How did you do in the competition?
AS. Unfortunately we didn’t take first or second place, the cash prizes. But placing somewhere between third and sixth out of 150 is pretty good. I would’ve loved taking back a win for Hawaii but… It certainly was an honor and privledge being there.
HC. So where does Recipe Remixed go from here?
AS. Well our dev key from Campbells is still active so you can still see what we submitted. Better yet, go to www.antisociallabs.com and keep following our story and see how it unfolds.
HC. Anything else you wanna share?
AS. That if you put the time in, things will happen. What we accomplished is certainly within reach of anyone in our community. So I encourage you to come down and get more involved with events, workshops and hackathons and meet the community. HICap is what it is today because of our community.
HC. Mahalo for sharing your story with us.
AS. Thanks having me.