An amazing time in the biggest of cities

New York City’s Fashion District - This spring’s (dev)day was held at the Helen Mills event center of NYC’s most storied neighborhoods. As the room filled, one point quickly became clear: API-centric development is proving to be an iconic foundation, not just a seasonal fad. Developers from as far away as Puerto Rico participated in this hands-on collaborative conference.

Larry Price from the Fortellis team kicked off the event with an inspiring and metaphor filled keynote highlighting how Fortellis is creating a library of APIs. He went on to explain how automotive industry developers can leverage this library to become the authors of their own story.

“Let’s be honest: In today’s world, data is almost everything –second only to time. Data tells you who, what, where and how. With sophisticated systems, it can even extrapolate when. That information can be used to help dealerships change how they do business. But how do we plug dealerships into that information in a way that is convenient and easy to digest?”

Creativity Was On Display

We witnessed and amazing amount of creativity energy flowing through packed room of coders, designers and dreamers. Individuals who hadn’t known each other prior to the event discovered common passions and found themselves spontaneously working together to create entirely new apps. Apps that were only possible when collaborating together and leveraging Fortellis and its ecosystem of real time APIs. Developers from the Fortellis team rolled up their sleeves, working alongside developers to bring a number of exciting new apps to life.

As Ash Owen walked from table to table, engaging with teams designing, publishing and collaborating, he was continually greeted with questions and great enthusiasm for Fortellis. “The value of using Fortellis to consume and publish both APIs and apps” Ash stated “is the perfect way to address the growing demands to modernize their existing workflows, automate business transactions and ultimately improve customer experience.”

Automotive Technology Hackathon

Developers hunched over stickered laptops feverishly work on new ideas from the very beginning. Dealer360 and DataClover joined together to build a manufacturer CSI scores app, meshing visualizations and a newly-formed API.

VPs and a handful of sales and product marketing pros were on hand to answer commercialization questions but the real excitement came for seeing developers get down to business. In the end, we all reveled and creative sparks flying throughout both days.

The father and son Purple Software team elected to build a new app, leveraging their existing published Get Insurance API. MyKaarma combined well with CDK Global to evolve an innovating e-payment app. They are seeking a specific API which will let them write back the status of a payment from a reconciliation perspective.

The Sulzer team were heads down through the Hackathon and perhaps one of the few teams that included some all-nighters. Spiffit provided a highlight in their presentation, highlighting that CDK employees are not subject to bribery for winning awards!

RS_10T created a Campaign Management app, providing a simple way for dealers to market and advertise their apps. PickMyCar actually launching in the US while they attended the event, though they were not completely engaged in the Hackathon as a result.

Showcase!

Each Hackathon judge shared their enthusiasm in the Fortellis platform, by diligently evaluating each app before announcing the winners. Dealer 360 to top honors with Purple Software as a close second. All participants are to be congratulated. The number of APIs published and Apps optimized as a result of this event are a true testament to everyone who participated.

A special thanks for all who put in the effort to come out to this cool event and all of the folks it took behind the scenes to make this a success. We look forward to seeing many of you at the next (dev)day!