FTC Announces Winners For 'Robocall Challenge'

Federal Trade Commission announced the winners of the first Robocall Challenge it hosted to prevent unsolicited and spam calls on Tuesday, according to THe New York Times.

Winners of the contest split the $50,000 prize money for developing software which can block unwanted calls. They were chosen from among the 800 submissions made during the contest.FTC said that more than 200,000 people complain about receiving unwanted calls every month.

The winners, Aaron Foss and Sedar Danis, shared the first-place money. The FTC also gave "technology achievement award," a non-monetary award to Google's engineers in Pittsburgh, Daniel Klein and Dean Jackson. The software developed by these participants helped uniquely to fight the problem of robotic calls.

"The solutions that our winners came up with have the potential to turn the tide on illegal robocalls," Charles Harwood, acting director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. "We're hoping these winning proposals find their way to the marketplace soon, and will provide relief to millions of American consumers harassed by these calls."

Foss developed a software called "Nomorobo," that recognizes the call before it reaches the user's phone and disconnects it from the server if it is an automated recorded unwanted call.

Danis's software is capable of identifying the source of the call and add the "whitelisted, blacklisted, and graylisted numbers" to a database which rejects unwanted calls.

The Technology Achievement Award winners, Jackson and Klein from Google, took a page from the Gmail's "Mark As Spam" option. Users will be asked to report a number to an online database if it is recognized as spam or unwanted. The external hardware verifies the incoming caller with the database and blocks it if the number is marked as unwanted.

Foss said in a statement to The Verge that he will use his share of prize money to implement his idea into the real world and give hands on experience to all users. He plans to join major carriers with his idea so it can be included as a part of their services.