A wrap-up of the APC's hackathon

"Over 120 participants used Transactional Data to make difference to the lives of Australians."

The Australian Payments Council (APC) held Australia’s first cross-industry hackathon in Melbourne and Sydney on 11 to 13 August.

The event brought together participants from financial institutions, consulting firms and the fintech community. As AusPayNet’s Emerging Technology Lead, I was excited to attend the event in Melbourne at Cognizant’s Collaboratory. In Sydney, the hackathon was hosted by Stone & Chalk.

22 Teams from our community

A total of 22 teams, comprising over 120 participants worked to complete the challenge set by the APC – using Transactional Data to Improve the Lives of Australians.  A mix of actual and simulated data was available in a sandbox environment. Teams were given from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon to bring their ideas to life. Mentors were on hand over the weekend to help guide them, and a relaxation session on Sunday made sure they were composed and ready to present their pitches.

Great winning ideas

The Best Overall App winners in each city were awarded $5,000 prize money. Sydney winners Meeco created Loyal-ception; an app that uses your current transactions to help you find the best loyalty programs based on where you spend the most.

In Melbourne, the team behind emFund (i.e. Emergency Fund) showed us how transactional data could be used to help locate and provide for loved ones when a natural disaster hits.

Congratulations and thanks to all 22 teams for some truly inspirational work. It was great to see all the effort everyone put in. The prototypes on show were impressive. My personal favourite had to be the clever use of transactional data to create a dating app!

I know everyone involved had a great time. The event also had strong interest on Twitter, reaching over 80 thousand accounts!

View the video highlights package here. To keep in touch with future events follow us @AusPayNet.