Startup Weekend winners ask 'What's 4 lunch?'

A mobile app that gets children helping with food preparation has taken out first prize at Startup Weekend Palmerston North. This was the first Startup Weekend event held outside a major city centre in New Zealand.

The weekend long, hands on experience gave aspiring entrepreneurs the chance to find out if their startup ideas were viable. In just 54 hours, the winning team developed a website and mobile phone app to get kids interested in the food they eat.

Called What’s 4 Lunch, the app provides recipes with information about each of the ingredients, including its origin, along with video and photos. The What’s 4 Lunch team won an $8000 prize package for their efforts.

Second place and the Open Data Prize was won by Friendsafe, an app that enables people to share their travel plans and improve personal safety. As well as sharing the start and end-point of a journey with friends, the app also operates as a communication platform and emergency feedback alert that records audio, video, and geo-location data. The Open Data Prize, worth $1000, was awarded for using local open data sources.

Little Helper Books received an honourable mention for their concept, which allows parent to create games, apps, and ebooks in which their child is a character to help them deal with difficult situations.

Startup Weekend Palmerston North was managed by the BCC, a Palmerston North based business that specialises in taking technology ideas to market. The weekend was sponsored and hosted at UCOL Palmerston North, with Massey University and Kiwi Landing Pad being the other major sponsors.

“I was blown away by the quality of what was achieved over the weekend – it was at the same level as what we've seen come out of Auckland and Wellington,” said Dave Moskovitz, Startup Weekend’s global facilitator. “What really stood out and made all the difference was the teamwork. Teamwork trumps naked skill, and too much ego in a fast moving high-pressure situation is a recipe for failure.”

Startup Weekend events have been run in 93 countries worldwide, and Massey University will also be sponsoring the next New Zealand event in Tauranga on September 14-16, 2012.

For more information visit http://tauranga.startupweekend.org