Conferences exist to cater to almost every industry, and some companies hold conferences entirely dedicated to their own customers. Theses events are prime locations for networking with other people in the industry as well as potential customers. For vendors at these events, conference badges are an important tool as they allow for the collection of attendee data for future contact. TouchBadge looks to bring that kind of experience to every conference attendee. Working with hardware partner Breadware, Inc., we are developing TouchBadge, a smart conference badge. TouchBadge allows the transfer of contact information between attendees wirelessly and without an external reader. Once obtained, contacts are stored in the cloud for later retrieval and are exportable to the users customer relationship management (CRM) software of their choice.

• Real Time

  Touchbadge is a real time device. As contacts are made, the app will automatically sync with the cloud to make sure you can access your contacts anywhere, anytime.

• Bluetooth LE

  Touchbadge uses Bluetooth LE (low energy) so you never have to worry about charging your phone while making new contacts!

• Cloud-connected

  Touchbadge uses your phone to keep connected to the internet. Even if you're away from service, Touchbadge never loses track of your new contacts!

As this project scope is rather large, it will encompass many different technologies and frameworks for each different section of the project. The badge itself will use Bluetooth and Near-Field communication (NFC) to interact with other Smart Badges nearby. The firmware for the badge will be written in C but is at the discretion of Breadware while the hardware itself is still being developed. The website portion of the project shall be implemented using ASP.NET in conjunction with the Bootstrap framework to create a responsive web design that will easily be accessible on mobile platforms. For the mobile application, Xamarin was originally going to be utilized, however after development of a prototype in conjunction with Azure, Team 11 decided to switch to Ionic with AWS as the backend.

The sponsor company, Breadware, was launched by engineers, designers, and managers frustrated by the costs, time-frames, and roadblocks of developing IoT hardware. The Breadware team leveraged their technical expertise to create a modernized, friendly, and user-facing platform resting on an underlying algorithmic infrastructure that provides unparalleled quality and speed at unprecedented prices.