Tieto Oyj: Tieto to Participate in Ultrahack, the Biggest Hackathon in Europe

Tieto (HEX:TIE1V)(STO:TIEN) start-ups are joining forces to seek innovative ideas for the future of the retail industry by participating in Ultrahack 2015 – the biggest hackathon in Europe, taking place just before start-up event SLUSH in November in Helsinki, Finland.

Tieto is actively looking for innovative, user-friendly and gamified solutions to create better shopping experiences in the future. One way to keep the retail innovations rolling is to take part in Ultrahack 2015 event that provides the perfect framework to develop and test new ideas and software within one month.

Tieto’s challenge for the Ultrahack teams is to bring traditional shopping at brick-and-mortar-stores to a whole new level. According to eMarketer, Millenials see shopping as a form of entertainment. Almost two-fifths (37 per cent) of today's youngsters would prefer to make all of their purchases online rather than in-store. This creates a challenge to brick-and-mortar-stores to find and create entertaining shopping experiences.

"Innovating together with customers and partners or in hackathons is a great new way to create products and services with superior customer experiences. By bringing in external hackers with international and interdisciplinary background Tieto hopes to come up with something new and untried that can be developed as actual new and cool services for our customers’ customers to experience in retail”, comments Mikko Leinonen, head of Customer Experience Management start-up at Tieto.

"Most of today's loyalty schemes identify customers at checkout rather than when they enter the store. This is one of the key opportunities to innovate around – what if more and more targeted offers would be given to you when you enter the store? The teams participating in the Tieto hackathon challenge will get a unique opportunity to use TeliaSonera's M2M in a Box device. The device can collect different data easily: e.g. motion, temperature, humidity etc and it has GPS connectivity. The data collected can be used as a starting point for new exciting shopping experiences”, comments Taneli Tikka, Head of Industrial Internet start-up at Tieto.

Leinonen and Tikka have high expectations for Ultrahack. "In addition to using the power of technology, we urge everyone to keep focus on the customer experience and seek solutions that would be loved by the users”, say Leinonen and Tikka.

The Ultrahack teams will present their innovations for judging on November 6 - 8, 2015 at Helsinki, Finland. The winning team will be able to present their idea during the biggest start-up event SLUSH on 11 - 12 November.

Interested in joining Tieto challenge? Participate in Tieto’s challenge at hackathon and have a chance not only to win great prizes but also to get involved in the cutting-edge innovative work that Tieto does. Sign in: https://ultrahack.org/challenges/gamifying-brick-mortar-shopping-with-iot/

Follow Ultrahack: https://ultrahack.org/

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Tieto is the largest Nordic IT services company providing full life-cycle services for both the private and public sectors and product development services in the field of communications and embedded technologies. The company has global presence through its product development business and global delivery centres. Tieto is committed to developing enterprises and society through IT by realizing new opportunities in customers’ business transformation. At Tieto, we believe in professional development and results.

Founded 1968, headquartered in Helsinki, Finland and with approximately over 13 000 experts, the company operates in over 20 countries with net sales of approximately EUR 1.6 billion. Tieto’s shares are listed on NASDAQ OMX in Helsinki and Stockholm. Please visit www.tieto.com for more information.

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