Plantronics Announces Collaborative Effort from PLT Labs and Clarity: The 2015 PLT Labs Application Innovation Contest

The contestants will compete for $85,000 total of cash prizes:

• First prize: $50,000
• Second prize: $25,000
• Third prize: $10,000

These cash prizes can be used for any purpose the winners want to, like starting a company or continuing their studies. But in order to win, they will need to form their own teams and submit ideas for new applications, using and with the access to different product concept prototypes, as well as Plantronics SDKs, and APIs, taking into consideration one of the three broad categories chosen by the organizers. The three broad categories are:

• Applications for People with Limited Mobility
• Business Applications for Mobile Devices
• Personal Applications for Mobile Devices

Vice President of Innovation and New Ventures at Plantronics, Cary Bran said, “Headsets have rapidly moved beyond simple wearables that connect one person to another through speech. Now a broad range of contextual information from the device, coupled with the power and ubiquity of smartphones makes entirely new classes of application possible. Through this nine month hack-a-thon, we are hoping to tap the brightest and most creative innovators in the world to explore the realm of what’s possible—and reward then with cash so they can further their education or develop new businesses.”

The innovation contest is made up of five rounds. The first round is the Initial Entry where submissions will be accepted. Idea proposals can be submitted and brought to the Contest Submission Process starting September 29, 2014 until November 15, 2104. All interested individuals can form teams and strategize on their application, as well as the business side of their proposal. And while the submissions are ongoing, contestants are advised to review the contest’s Terms and Conditions in order for them to further understand its nature and the new devices’ interface and capabilities.

The initial phase is followed by the Quarter-finals. In this stage, all entries considered valid in the first phase will be reviewed by the Plantronics judging panel. 20 teams will be selected and will be accepted to continue to the Semi-finals round.

In the Semi-finals round, all 20 teams will have an access to product concepts, loaned by Plantronics, for the team to craft their own application, develop and test it. Plantronics will issue APIs to the contestants and provide access to sensors and so to data, which could be contained in wearable devices. Tracking the head orientation in three dimensions, the sensors is a nine-axis one that include accelerometer, free-fall detection, gyroscope, magnetometer, multiple radios, near-field communications, speech sensing, tap detection, as well as other communication and telemetry protocols. Using what the Plantronics provided, the teams will need to deliver enough proof of the application’s functionality by offering a sample of the design and code of the interface of the application. Basing on what the teams provided, the panel will choose the top 10 teams who will continue to the Finals.

In the Finals round, the remaining 10 teams will need three items. After being assigned with a Plantronics mentor for the round, each team will need to come up with the application’s prototype, along with a short video presentation and their final business report. The Plantronics judging panel, after receiving all entries, will choose the 5 best teams, who will fight in the last round, the Winners round.

The Winners Round will take place on May 2015. A representative of each team will need to present his respective team’s prototype, at the expense of Plantronics and live in front of the Plantronics and Clarity judging panel, who will decide the winners after all the presentations.