"We are proud to host the first-ever Elevator & Escalator Industry Hackathon in India. Our objective behind conducting this Hackathon is to bring thousands of Developers together and foster Digital Innovation. Our aim is to improve the flow of urban life through a mix of Technology, Research, Market Knowledge and out of the box ideas. Our ranking in the Forbes list of top 100 innovative companies in the world for the 6th consecutive year, stands testimony to the fact that we continuously foster innovation within KONE. We are delighted to work with IBM and aim to encourage some of the best minds in the Developer Community to create and deliver seamless people flow experience" said Amit Gossain - Managing Director, KONE India

Commenting on the hackathon, Sachin Gupta, CEO and co-founder, HackerEarth said "The fourth industrial revolution will be led by the use of IoT applications in the industrial segment, which will lead to creation of new jobs with new skills. IoT is all about sensing, collecting data, and using it to improve our lives. The developers and hackathon enthusiasts participating in this event will be able to develop intelligent elevator solutions by using IBM's Watson IoT on the IBM Bluemix Cloud Platform. The hackathon will be held both online and offline as it will help us to reach out to the larger developer community across the country."

"A highly populated country like India requires smart cities and buildings to understand the movement patterns and preferences of its population in order to create systems which make the user experiences more intuitive, convenient and enjoyable. Through the use of IBM's Watson IoT on the IBM Bluemix Cloud Platform, participants of the KONE ‘Smart Elevator Challenge' will have the opportunity to bring their ideas to life while the systems analyze the disparate data, identify and predict issues, reduce downtime and personalize the experience for the end users."Kaushik Bhaskar, Vice President, India Software Labs, IBM India.

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