Congratulations to start-up BeCouply for winning Ford’s SYNC AppLink Developer Challenge during the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon for their date idea suggestion app, Dates.fm.   The event allowed developers the opportunity to create mobile apps that take advantage of Ford’s SYNC System with voice powered by Nuance.  Dates.fm allows couples to “tune in” to relevant location-based date options to find fun date ideas nearby.  Using Ford’s in-car technology, Dates.fm could help users find these date options while driving so they can make plans on the go.  And now with Ford and Nuance’s help, on-the-go convenience can be transferred to your relationship life.  How great is that?

As the winner of this developer challenge, the Dates.fm team will become a licensed SYNC developer and will have the opportunity to build and integrate their app with SYNC AppLink.  The team will also have the opportunity to travel with Ford to the International CES in January 2013 to showcase the app.  As an added bonus, the winner is receiving $1,000 from Nuance for being the best use of in-car voice recognition at the Hackathon.  Now talk about great prizes!

The 2^nd and 3^rd place winners were Things There and Alfred apps.  Taking 2^nd, Alfred is an off-board voice dictation and search enabled application that allows voice-requested food searches, sharing to friends and routing.  Things There, a voice-enabled application that allows local “desire” searches based on time of day, took the 3^rd prize for this clever idea.

Nuance’s Gary Clayton participated as a judge for this event along with Julius Marchwicki, Liz Halash, Stefan Bankowski and Kevin Burdette from Ford and helped make the difficult discussion of what app is the most useful for drivers trying to stay safely connected behind the wheel.  All 10 teams delivered impressive ideas, and we can’t wait to see where they all go from here!

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