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Megatrend Business Solutions Selected for IBM’s Watson Build Challenge

Josipa Jurić

Begins development on cognitive business solution using IBM Watson APIs on IBM Cloud to provide travelers and local users with personalized recommendations on local attractions

 Zagreb – 30 August, 2017: Megatrend Business Solutions has been selected in phase two of the Watson Build challenge to develop its cognitive business plan, Frida – Free Time Assistant, into a working prototype using IBM Watson APIs on the IBM Cloud. IBM will provide Megatrend Business Solutions with access to IBM development tools, business mentors and cognitive specialists to bring its concept to life.

The Watson Build challenge is IBM’s first cognitive challenge designed solely for Business Partners. In phase one, IBM received hundreds of business plan submissions from business partners around the world. In phase two, select Watson based solutions were chosen to progress to the next phase where partners will build working prototypes to demonstrate these cognitive products and services.

“The response to our first-ever Watson Build challenge for business partners has been phenomenal,” said John Teltsch, General Manager, IBM Global Business Partners. “We congratulate Megatrend Business Solutions for presenting a strong business plan centered around IBM Cloud and Watson and progressing to the next round of the challenge. We look forward to supporting Megatrend Business Solutions as it works on a prototype for Frida – Free Time Assistant with the goal of bringing it to our joint clients.”

The tourism industry is being fueled by technology – from websites that help travelers book their trips to apps that provide reviews and local recommendations. These websites and digital apps often require questionnaires, filtering and sorting, resulting in lost time that could be spent enjoying a city’s attractions.

Frida – Free Time Assistant is a mobile application for travelers that taps into Watson APIs on IBM Cloud to provide specific, location based information on nearby attractions, along with personalized suggestions. Frida will use Watson’s cognitive capabilities deliver user specific information and recommendations instantaneously, helping travelers quickly sort through all the digital “noise” and find relevant events and activities.

The solution will help travelers enhance their travel experience while promoting local restaurants, museums, shops, sporting events, historic locations and cultural activities. The app will benefit tourists as well as the local stakeholders in the tourism industry.

The app leverages Watson’s Tone Analyzer when suggesting appropriate events, Personality Insights for proposing traveling options, touristic or cultural sights and Natural Language Recognition when having a conversation about local attractions. Frida communicates and provides information based on a traveler’s previous choices as well as choices made by people with similar interests. The app is constantly learning from users’ input to deliver even better recommendations. As Frida learns from Watson, it will be able to predict users’ desired activities and make suggestions based on previous choices, interests and even users’ present emotions.

“For today’s travelers, there are countless websites and applications provided by thousands of companies around the world, but they are not connected in a way that is convenient for users,” said Mario Juric, business solutions department manager at Megatrend Business Soutions. “Our proposed application, Frida, will use publicly available data and provide a single destination for users so that they do not have to comb though multiple sites and apps to find relevant suggestions.”

Megatrend Business Solutions joined the Watson Build challenge for IBM Business Partners to help the company start a completely new type of business – one that develops and offers cloud applications on best-in-class global infrastructure that no single IT company could afford. The company began its project with a Design Thinking workshop lead by Milivoj Obradovic, Megatrend Business Solutionsᶦ Design Thinking consultant, and it resulted in the idea for Frida, an app for active people looking for travel and outing recommendations. Now Megatrend Business Solutions developers are building a prototype, using some of the 160+ IBM microservices available in the IBM Cloud.

Megatrend Business Solutions is a Platinum IBM Business Partner in IBM PartnerWorld, a program that gives channel partners the resources and tools they need to succeed in the Cognitive Era.

For more on the Watson Build, click here.

About Megatrend Business Solutions
For more, visit www.megatrend.com

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Media Contact:
Josipa Juric
Marketing manager
+385 1 4091 222
josipa.juric@megatrend.com