An app that uses a customer’s banking information to offer savings on a range of items such as utility bills, travel and shopping, took the top prize at Ireland’s first dedicated banking hackathon. The app, Savetastic, was one of eight ideas ‘hacked’ together by the teams using the Open Bank Project API, data sandbox and other partner services (including MongoDB, Big Red Cloud, data.gov.ie, Xtreme Push, Aylien, Evercam and OpenCorporates).
Organised by Ulster Bank and global experts at the Open Bank Project held at NDRC in Dublin the weekend-long event brought together almost 100 coders, designers, mentors and investors for an intensive period of peer-to-peer idea generation and programming focused on new thinking for banks and bank customers.
The Savetastic team of Alejandro Ricotti, Diego Alexandre, Kelson Martins, Ivan Tabarino will now avail of three months incubation at Ulster Bank with access to a number of mentors/ executives and specialists at Ulster Bank, to develop the idea into a product. Each team member also received a Parrot AR 2 Drone 2.
Second place went to the team behind Simply Confirm, an audit tool for SMEs and third place went to Owlwise, a gamified information app for teens.
Commenting on the event, Chris Davis, chief operating officer, Ulster Bank said: “This was the first time an event of this kind took place in Ireland, it brought together almost 100 energetic, creative and innovative people and they really challenged the way banks think. At Ulster Bank we’re aiming to become the number one bank for customer service, trust and advocacy so we’re open to all ideas and new thinking on how to best serve our customers. We’ve now to keep up this momentum at our second event in The MAC, Belfast from Friday 13 to Sunday 15 February.”
Judges at the event were Dermot Berkery of Delta Partners; Louise Hodgson, entrepreneur, Undergraduate Awards and editor New Thinking, New Ireland; Marc O’Dwyer, CEO, Big Red Cloud; Brett Myers, CEO of CurrencyFair; and Chris Davis, COO of Ulster Bank.
TechCentral Reporters
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers