I've been experimenting with near field communication tags the past couple of months, so when I heard @causalitynow @cginc_ was hosting a hackathon at @betaworks in NYC, I had to go and build something! I built this tool to use NFC tags as physical keys to unlock exclusive digital links.

🚀 The Merge Hackathon 2024! 🚀 This past weekend, @cginc_ (creators of @causalitynow) and @betaworks brought together several dozen people across 12 incredible teams for its very first hackathon in NYC. The challenge? Redefine immersive consumer experiences by seamlessly blending physical and digital worlds using causality. Participants had half a day to put their creativity to work before presenting their builds to a team for scoring, including: * Guest judges @REALbyNIGHT (@thesyndotcom, Marketing and Experiential) and Shai Limonchik (@AnthropicAI, Tech ) * Official @cginc_ staff and support members @StrawberrySith, @TheHazelBrown and Jordan Zapakin * Special guest (PowerStation Studios, Licensing and Product Experiences). Competition was fierce, with three victors emerging to take 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes: 🥇 1st Place: Clever Coffee A causality-powered loyalty program replacing traditional paper stamp reward cards, “Clever Coffee” turns every coffee tap into a rewarding experience. It perfectly blended digital innovation with tangible enjoyment, which is always our goal for causality’s use and evolution. 🥈 2nd Place: Forager A retail-oriented scavenger hunt combining causality's ability to enable interaction with the physical space for end-users and AI which generates stories and prompts on the fly, making each experience unique (even in the same store). 🥉 3rd Place: PlateShare Social good meal-cards, powered by causality, which can be handed out to the needy and loaded on the fly with meals from participating restaurants. A massive congratulations to the grand prize winners, the two runner up teams and of course to all 12 groups who brought creativity, passion, and cutting-edge thinking to our challenge. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝗵 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀! Want to learn more about how Causality is transforming experiences? Visit our website, contact us, and stay tuned to see more of our winners' full project and explore the future of physical-digital innovation. causality.xyz #Hackathon #Innovation #TechCommunity #causality

The Merge Hackathon: Introducing our judges! Shai Limonchik is a member of the technical staff at @AnthropicAI (creators of #Claude), where among other domains he focuses on improving Claude's capabilities for end-user tasks. His previous work has included roles at @Roblox and @Meta.

The Merge Hackathon: Introducing our judges! Josh Goldfeder (@REALbyNIGHT) is a @The_Clios award-winning Senior Marketing Manager for @thesyndotcom; a boutique marketing agency. For the past 10 years, he has specialized in immersive experiences for IPs, brands and music acts in both the physical and digital space.