TomTom Takes Over TechCrunch Disrupt 2019
What is TechCrunch Disrupt?
What do you get when you gather thousands of entrepreneurs, start-ups, founders, investors, developers and world-renowned speakers in the heart of Silicon Valley? You get TechCrunch Disrupt.
TomTom returned this year as a Gold Sponsor of this premier event, putting our TomTom Maps APIs in front of the most ambitious founders, talented developers, leading VC firms and cutting-edge tech companies.
View from the Expo
This year the event moved next door to Moscone Center, North. TomTom had a premium booth where we got to showcase to tech-savvy event attendees what we're all about! Our message is a simple one…
- TomTom is the leading location technology company.
- You can Build Different with TomTom Maps APIs.
Our booth featured a 360-degree view of demonstrations, with our workshop area serving as the centrepiece of our presence. Our demos included:
- Real-time maps table with a mirrored projection to showcase the scope and complexity of our digital maps.
- Tablets to demonstrate TomTom Maps APIs display, search and routing capabilities.
- A video wall depicting our new Map Styler offering.
- Throughout the day we offered workshops encompassing everything from “Adding a map in 30 seconds” to “Electric Vehicle Long Distance Routing”.
- Our booth included a fun game of “Guess the City” using TomTom map and traffic information – lucky winners walked away with tic-tac-toe games and rubrics cubes.
- And three lucky contestants won a Nintendo Switch – they were randomly selected from a group who tweeted us a photo of themselves at our booth using the hashtag #Switch2TomTom and posted it on the @TomTomDevs Twitter channel – congrats!
Special Announcements
TomTom made two important announcements during TechCrunch Disrupt.
The first was our partnership with Verizon. In an onstage presentation, TomTom’s Anders Truelsen, Managing Director of Enterprise, and Jeff Frantz, Executive Director Verizon Location Technology, announced the launch of an innovation project focused on making intersections safer for emergency vehicles.
Combining our TomTom HD Maps with Verizon's 5G Ultra-Wideband technology will help us create safer roads. We'll do this by enabling the sharing of location information coming from all entities at the intersection with emergency vehicles in near real-time with near-perfect reliability and accuracy.
We also announced the launch of TomTom Map Styler! Map Styler is a new tool to provide a suite of web services to customize detailed and fresh maps for web and mobile apps. TomTom Map Styler will now make it easier to use TomTom Maps APIs and create custom map styles. We now offer more than 900 map features to select from, and all features can be styled with brand identity elements like: color, opacity, patterns, line width and font size. The interface is intuitive and user-friendly, so developers feel in control of modifying any element of the map.
View from the Street
As you walked the streets of San Francisco, if you weren’t transfixed on your phone, you might have seen our TomTom mobile mapping van. Last week our van was driving the streets of San Francisco, collecting valuable content used to help make our awesome maps!
TomTom maintains a fleet of 40+ vehicles as a part of our U.S./Canada Mobile Mapping Program. We refresh the top 4 road classes every 2 years and cover 1+ million kilometers in the U.S. and Canada every year.
A standard mobile mapping unit includes the following vehicle sensors:
- LIDAR
- Camera
- Server
- GPS
- Wheel Odometer Sensor
So, the next time you see one of those funky vans with the camera on top driving in your neighborhood, you’ll know why. TomTom has your street network covered!
After Party
Where you find the TomTom Devs team, a party can’t be far behind! Fun! Networking! Food! Drinks! Games! DJ! And a little learning about TomTom Maps APIs made for a great Thursday evening. At the end of TechCrunch Disrupt Day 2, we ventured nearby to Microsoft Reactor to kick back, relax, share a few snacks and drinks, learn and generally to have a great time! The music was turned up, the photo booth was turned on, and party time was on!
In addition to the partying, the crowd was treated to a short About TomTom Maps APIs presentation by our Developer Advocate, Jose Rojas. Then it was back to partying!
Thank you to eveyone who came by our booth, went to our keynotes or hung out with us at the Afterparty! Our community is what makes these events so successful for us.
We’re counting down the days until next year!
