Cable Show 2012: Stanford Team Wins 'App Challenge' With Bandwidth-Priority System

Two students from Stanford University took home the $10,000 grand prize in the NCTA's Imagine App Challenge real-time "hack-a-thon" competition here with teams from five colleges, with an app that allows broadband users to set bandwidth priorities for content and applications.

The contest, located in the show's Imagine Park exhibit area, pitted student developers from Stanford, Pace, Wellesley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Rutgers. Each group had 48 hours to develop an idea and build a prototype app, with the National Cable & Telecommunications Association footing the bill for travel and food expenses.

"We are so honored and proud to have you here on the floor," NCTA president and CEO Michael Powell said in announcing the winners. "I think you inspired us all about a future that we're not going to build -- you're going to build."

The Stanford students, Yiannis Yiakoumis and Te-Yuan Huang, developed an app called "My Home" that enables users to set preferences for traffic prioritization into their home network. The goal of the app is to let users choose to give priority to any content providers or applications they prefer.

"ISPs provide best-effort traffic delivery today," Yiakoumis said in presenting the app. "This shows as long as you give the user the control over prioritizing traffic... there are ways [for operators] to make money out of it by exploiting infrastructure better."

In second place, winning $4,000, was MIT's Roar, a social-media app designed to recreate the experience of being in a stadium. The app uses Civolution's automatic content recognition API to determine when someone is watching a live sporting event, then lets TV viewers chat with friends, take polls and share "signs" sketched out on an iPad (like "Go Red Sox!").

A team from Wellesley College took third place, earning a $2,000 prize for "WorkOut Buddy," a social-media sports and fitness app to encourage users to live a healthier lifestyle. The app lets users invite friends to join them in a workout, and lets friends share recommendations for video or TV shows to watch while working out and music playlists.

The two other teams were from Rutgers University, which created "Teev," a social-media app to enable and measure comments about TV shows; and Pace University, which developed Energy Friends to let users search for rides online to make it easier to carpool.

The four judges that picked the winners were: Mark Hess, Comcast's senior vice president of advanced business and technology development; Rebecca Rusk Lim, vice president of interactive experience, audience and multiplatform technologies at Turner Broadcasting System; Jim Luccheese, CEO of The Echo Nest, a developer of digital music applications; and Matt Powers, CTO of software-development firm Applico.

The App Challenge was organized by Jon Potter, president of the not-for-profit Application Developers Alliance, who said the organization has 6,000 members.

"I think the endorphins kicked in last night at 2 a.m.," Potter said. "I don't know how much Chinese food they sent out for but when I came in this morning, they were all still smiling."

To assemble the app teams, the Application Developers Alliance worked with public-relations firm Brodeur Communications solicit entry proposals from colleges and universities across the country. The contest was sponsored by Civolution and Rovi.