It’s on! The Gemalto 2013 Contactless Challenge has officially commenced, with our fearless bloggers Kathy Dalton of Salt Lake City, UT (@KathyDaltonSLC) and Josh Kerr of Austin, TX (@joshkerr) on the hunt with their Isis NFC-equipped phones, ready to make contactless purchases and score points. The stakes are high: they are competing for the honor of their respective home towns, and on behalf of their favorite charities. Kathy emerged victorious in the first day of the competition, leading with nine points over Josh’s four. 
The first day of the Contactless Challenge could be summed up in two words: Jamba Juice. After an initial struggle to ensure her card was fully loaded, Kathy Dalton completed the first purchase of this year’s event by juicing up with her two young children in tow. As you can see from her video, the payment process was seamless. She simply tapped her NFC-enabled phone against the reader and the payment was complete in less than five seconds.
Check out the video to see it in action:
httpv://youtu.be/IDqqcJeU9NE
Kathy’s competitor, Austin’s technology enthusiast and entrepreneur Josh Kerr, also got off on a strong start once he received and loaded his prepaid GreenDot MoneyPak card, describing the process as “straight forward and all worked quickly and painlessly.”
In fact, he was actually a little surprised at how easy the process was, having had a few bumpy experiences with other mobile payment systems, which further helped to establish the technology’s credibility.
“With JPMorgan Chase, Visa and the other heavy weight financial institutions all part of the Isis consortium I think it is safe to say that this is a legit service,” said Josh in a June 10 blog post. “Security is one of the big benefits of using the Isis mobile wallet and I’m for sure going to talk more about it in the coming week.”
Since both Josh and Kathy have $250 available to complete their tasks throughout the week, it will be interesting to watch the competition unfold. Although Kathy ended the first day in the lead with nine points, Josh indicated that he had a big evening planned to tip the scales in his favor:
How long will Kathy stay in the lead? Stay tuned to #GemaltoNFC to find out! @Gemalto, @JustaskGemalto and @Gemalto_NA
