San Diego’s entrepreneurial spirit came to life during the StartupSD FirstWave Innovator HackNight at our Intuit office in San Diego. The event brought together developers, startups, and non-developers alike, fostering a collaborative environment where diverse talents were showcased.
The Intuit Developer team attended as a technical sponsor, adding expertise and support to the event. We kicked off the evening with a lightning talk, providing valuable insights into how to develop on the Intuit platform. This talk was particularly helpful for participants looking to leverage Intuit’s developer tools and resources in their projects. Participants were encouraged to solve the QuickBooks technical challenge we presented: to utilize the QuickBooks API to solve common pain points faced by small businesses.
Other lightning talks included those given by Neo4j, Diffbot, Unstructured, Replit and EyePop.ai. Each technical sponsor added to a variety of perspectives and technical knowledge at the event. Neo4j shared insights into graph databases and their applications, while EyePop.ai discussed the latest advancements in AI and visual technology.
Among the startups presenting unique challenges were ASL Flurry, gravityAI, Rutabaga, Ripl and HVAKR. ASL Flurry is working on a platform to make American Sign Language more accessible, while HVAKR is developing a solution to optimize HVAC systems for energy efficiency. Their presentations inspired participants to think about the broader impact of addressing these challenges.
The winners of the QuickBooks challenge were a group that decided to focus on inventory management. They used the QuickBooks API along with other platforms like Neo4j and EyePop.ai to build an innovative app to track and manage inventory valuation for home and office spaces. The oAuth playground and API Explorer tools on the Intuit developer portal allowed them to build their prototype in just a few hours.
Events like this allow more developers to learn more about opportunities in the QuickBooks ecosystem to build solutions that can be used by millions of small businesses around the globe. The event concluded with a sense of accomplishment and the promise of future collaborations, leaving all participants inspired and eager to continue innovating.
