Pharmacy board exam review app wins AngelHack Manila

Team GT and Thought Bubble Solutions won 2016 AngelHack with their PITCH: Pharmacy app. In photo are team members Angelica Tiu, Phylicia Marie Pineda, Grizelda Teng, Ed Oswald Go, and Rodette Pedro.

MANILA, Philippines, May 20, 2016 — What do you get in 24 hours when you bring together young individuals with top-notch coding skills and the passion to solve real-world problems? A hackathon like AngelHack Manila and a harvest of high potential mobile apps and digital solutions.

This was proven by the developers behind the grand prize winning app called “PITCH: Pharmacy” at the recent hackathon by AngelHack Manila. AngelHack is a global organization that strives to ignite the passion of the world’s most vibrant community of code creators and change makers to innovate and create a lasting impact in communities.

Integrated with Maya API (App Programming Interface), PITCH: Pharmacy intends to help aspiring pharmacists to ace their board exam by giving them access to review materials online.

Review materials can easily be purchased via the app because it is made possible by Maya Checkout, one of the digital payments solutions offered by Maya Business. Maya Checkout enables merchants and app publishers to accept and process card payments online, providing customers with a secure and seamless experience.

Maya provided its API to AngelHack Manila participants so they can easily integrate digital payments acceptance via Maya Checkout within the app.

Meanwhile, to make the review experience easier and more flexible, the winning team developed different user modes for tests and reviews. Zen Mode will allow users to answer the questions without any time limit. Meanwhile, Timed Mode simulates the pressure of the board exam while Battle Mode enables the user to compete with other co-reviewers, and compare test results after.

The five developers are planning to partner with different review centers to onboard content and tools that they can integrate in the app.

“This app can be helpful to pharmacy students who need to review for their licensure exam, whenever they have the time, wherever they are,” Ed Oswald Go of PITCH: Pharmacy team said.

The winning team received an exclusive invite to the 12-week HACKcelerator Program of AngelHack in Silicon Valley, $100 credits for Amazon Web Services, and PHP10,000 as a special prize from Maya Philippines for being able to integrate Maya API in their app.

From developers to founders

The AngelHack Manila 2016 is supported by mobile leader Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) and tech incubator IdeaSpace Foundation, in partnership with Silicon Valley-based AngelHack. Maya Philippines, the digital payments unit of PLDT and Smart, also backed the event.

“For four years now, the Smart Developer Network (Smart DevNet) has been supporting AngelHack. We do this because we want to empower the growing developer community in the Philippines,” said Paul Pajo, Developer Evangelist at Smart.

“By attending AngelHack, the developers not only get to hone, show off their skills, meet new people but also learn new stuff,” said David Quitoriano, tech startup founder and AngelHack Ambassador.

Winning teams of each AngelHack city leg gets an invitation to fly off to Silicon Valley to join the acceleration program, further improve their app, and pitch it to experts and investors. The whole process aims to further help them grow as developers and tech startup founders.

Now on its fourth year, AngelHack has been conducting more than 250 hackathons in more than 72 cities across the globe.

“Hackathons like AngelHack cultivate a culture of innovation and bias for action. It also gives them a lot of opportunity to meet different ‘hackers’ from the country. Everybody’s a winner as long as you give your 100% and be dedicated and passionate in your craft,” said Edge Dalmacio, software architect from Maya and one of the AngelHack Manila judges.

Aside from providing the special Maya cash prize and making available the Maya API for the participating developers, Maya provided mentors during the event. Diwa del Mundo, Senior Tech Specialist from Voyager Innovations, also conducted a demo on how to integrate the Maya API to their apps to add more value to their projects.

“We recognize that the developer community is integral to the success of our payment platforms. We have designed our APIs with ease of integration in mind. Developers looking for an online payment solution that can allow their mobile apps to accept Visa and MasterCard transactions can check out the Maya Developers Portal (developers.maya.ph),” said del Mundo.