CANNES – Dentsu’s “Walk with Me,” which uses Amazon Alexa as an “AI bodyguard,” was declared the most standout pitch and winner in the two-day “Change for Good” Hackathon, held live on June 19 to 20 at the 65th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The announcement of the winner was held on the Interactive Stage inside Lions Innovation (Palais II), Wednesday, June 20.
“Walk with Me” exemplified using the strengths of voice technology in a way that could immediately and tangibly benefit individuals – particularly their safety, a contrast to many of the other approaches with arguably less direct benefits. Always listening from a user’s phone when engaged, “Walk with Me” can help suggest safer routes home based on data of all users, call authorities and turn on both phone’s cameras at the first signs of trouble. Further, the scalability and application to many other cities and markets across the globe was self-evident – it had true application throughout the cities of the world for anyone walking alone, making it stand-out in its potential for greatest global impact.
Dentsu’s winning team was composed of Nikki Golez, JR Ignacio, Bot Vidanes and Biboy Royong of Dentsu Jayme Syfu (DJS) Philippines; and Aya Hamada of Dentsu Tokyo. “Team Dentsu’s winning idea is a brilliant example of insight + innovation. And with this win the world took notice of how great our guys are,” Merlee Jayme, DJS Chairmom and Chief Creative Officer said.
The twenty-four “Change for Good” Hackathon was a joint project of Amazon, Huge and international advocacy platform Global Citizen and Cannes Lions. Invited teams from across the globe joined forces and imagined and built solutions that will further six Global Citizen campaigns, including: No Poverty, Food & Hunger, Health, Education, Gender Equality, and Clean Water & Sanitation.
Seven (7) cross-disciplinary teams, which included Dentsu, a crew from Canada, Mobiquity, Grey, 360i, McCann, and Xandra USA presented strong creative, strategy and technology representation to a star-studded panel of judges that included author Gary Vaynerchuk. And as an investment in the future of the festival and in the next generation of leaders, each team included at least one member under 30 in the five-person team.
Teams selected to participate in the Hackathon benefitted from: A complete Festival pass to enjoy all that the Festival offers; hands-on mentorship from some of the world’s most prominent industry leaders and change influencers; on-the-ground solution architects from Amazon Web Services and Amazon Alexa were made available to make ideas a reality.
The winning team will have the opportunity to work with Global Citizen, Amazon Web Services, Amazon Alexa and Huge to launch and promote their solution. #
