Three USP students and one NUS student formed a team to compete in the Facebook Singapore Hackathon 2016 and won with their TombBook idea!'

They are:

Harsh Gadodia (Computer Engineering+ USP, Class of 2019)

Yeo Kai Yan (Computer Engineering + USP, Class of 2019)

Samson Tan Min Rong (Computer Science + USP, Class of 2019)

Bay Chuan Wei Candiie (Computer Science, Class of 2017)

Organised by Facebook (FB) Singapore and open to university students in Singapore, this year’s event was held on 3-4 September 2016. Around 300 applied for the Hackathon but only about 90 were selected to form teams to present ideas and compete. The overall winning team gets an all-expense paid trip, to go to FB HQ in Menlo Park, California, USA to represent Singapore in the Global FB Hackathon Finals 2016.

So, what was the team’s winning idea? TombBook – inspired by the memory of a dear friend of one of the teammates. TombBook is a FB enhancement that memorialises a user's profile when he/she passes away, giving it a diary-like interface. The user is also able to store messages for his/her friends, to be delivered at a specified point in time in the future after his/her death. Harsh tells us that “This feature is implemented via a bot on the Messenger platform with an artificial intelligence backend, allowing the user to interact with it using natural language”.

The team will set off for the Global FB Hackathon Finals in California from 16-18 November 2016. We wish the team best of luck!

Watch live video of the team’s winning presentation here (@ the 52.09min) and follow the Hackathon's Facebook page.