Fintech hackathon Start:up Maribor 2017

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Fintech hackathon Start:up Maribor 2017

1. December 2017 At 8.00

Date and time

Friday, 1. December 2017
8.00 - 0.00 CEST

Location

Join us in changing banking!

We’re inviting all coders, designers, and businesspeople to join us on 1 and 2 December at the second Fintech Hackathon Start:up Maribor, where we will spend two days working hard, hanging out, and having fun. Hackathon is a competition in coding and designing innovative solutions that every enthusiastic hacker, designer or businessperson should join.

In two days of intense work, socializing, and fun, the formed teams will develop innovative solutions from the field of banking, based on modern technologies of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, big data, blockchain, and so on. The best mentorship support by experienced developers of state-of-the-art solutions will be available to you.

60 chosen individuals will participate in the event! We are expecting applications from motivated and knowledgeable individuals as well as startup teams that wish to innovate in the field of banking and establishing business collaboration with Nova KBM.

At the event, you, the teams of Venture Factory and Nova KBM, and excellent mentors will develop high-impact ideas for banking solutions and prototype them. After the hackathon, you will present the ideas for solutions to an expert jury and contend for attractive prizes and an invitation for further collaboration with Nova KBM. It’s important to point out that all potential intellectual property remains in the ownership of the teams that will develop and pitch the solutions.

The Fintech Hackathon is carried out within the Start:up Maribor programme, supported by the Municipality of Maribor, and in close collaboration with Nova KBM, which is providing the challenges and prizes. We have been closely collaborating with Nova KBM since 2005. The bank has turned out to be an excellent supporter of the regional and national entrepreneurship ecosystem and is becoming an increasingly stronger and more important partner to startup companies.

We see the event as one of the ways to encourage collaboration between big companies and startups, thus bringing additional dynamics into the business development of the city and region.

Submit your application now and co-create the future of the fintech ecosystem!

5 reasons to participate

Possibility to co-create innovations in the banking industry by collaborating on Nova KBM’s projects.
Possibility of working at Nova KBM.
Potential to develop business collaboration with Nova KBM.
Inclusion of the product into the offer and sales network of Nova KBM.
Attractive prizes.

Prizes

1,000 EUR loaded on the “Nova KBM prepaid Visa” for the winning team,
iPhone X for the winning team,
free tickets for the PODIM 2018 Conference for all members of the winning team,
12 months’ use of a working space and services of Venture Factory for the winning team,
a hardware wallet for cryptocurrency Ledger Nano S for members of the three best teams, and
a goody bag for all participants.

Who are we expecting at the hackathon?

High-impact innovations are always the result of motivated, multidisciplinary teams, which is why among all applicants, we will carefully choose at most 60 participants. We are expecting active, knowledgeable and forward-thinking individuals and teams who realize that the only constant in business life are changes and improvements.

All innovative individuals and teams from Slovenia can participate at the event, namely as physical persons.

The applications will be open until all places are filled or at the latest by 22. 11. 2017. Registration is obligatory!

The registration takes place through an online application, which is positioned on the website www.startupmaribor.si. Fun, socialising, drinks, and snacks will be taken care of.

More information at info@startupmaribor.si or at the phone number +386 2 2294 270.

We are expecting applications by the following target groups:

innovative individuals; coders, designers and businesspeople who wish to innovate in the field of banking and establish a close partnership with Nova KBM,
startup teams that see themselves in a business model or collaboration with Nova KBM,
bank’s partners that wish to contribute to innovations in banking and strengthen their collaboration with Nova KBM.

Fintech Hackathon Challenges

Challenge 1: The bank as a modern financial hub

We are looking for ideas for innovative solutions enabled by the implementation of the PSD2 directive. The directive will de-monopolize banks’ databases of their clients and, with the clients’ permission of course, make them accessible for other business subjects.

However, the directive will also enable a service upgrade to banks, which will be able to approach the implementation of a single point for the perfect personal finance management of new and existing clients. It will enable clients comprehensive insight into personal finance as well as try to understand and use solution suggestions to actively address the client’s financial needs, taking the client’s financial capabilities, lifestyle, and needs into account.

In this, suggestions for solutions for painless registration, secure operation, reliable identification of users, and friendly innovative interaction are important, whereby user-friendly innovative interactions can include technologies like voice and picture recognition, augmented reality, and wearable devices.

Challenge 2: The bank as an information provider

We are looking for ideas for solutions that will enable Nova KBM to start marketing its aggregated data as a product. We are looking for innovative business cases (products), where the bank can monetize its data and services by using a blend of data from its data warehouse, PSD2 sources, 3rd party providers, and open data sources while using artificial intelligence technologies. In this, the data would be accessible through APIs that are easy to use, secure, and reliable as well as compliant with new regulations, which will additionally tighten the requirements for data safety.

Challenge 3: The bank as a service hub

We are looking for solutions that foster the sale of the bank’s financial products through other services, offered by the bank itself or by its partner (the bank plays the role of an offer aggregator, adding its financial service). The bank becomes a uniform service hubs – a single point for fulfilling the user’s needs. The focus should be on products that require financial services/products (vehicles, consumer electronics, real estate, healthcare, education and travel). In creating the solution, you of course shouldn’t forget to implement the PSD2 directive, which will enable other users, who aren’t clients of Nova KBM, to fulfil their needs with financial products of their own bank or, rather, with help of a competitive offer from Nova KBM.

Challenge 4: A bank that supports blockchain

Build a solution that shows how blockchain could be used within the bank to increase the speed and reduce the costs of activities like settlement and clearing by automating back-office functions shared across the banking sector.

Challenge 5: IoT-enabled ATMs and branch offices

Demonstrate how NKBM could support one or more IoT devices to promote its products and services. The devices could be wearable devices, sensors or other IoT devices that could provide data or information to the bank's equipment and information system to react to the client's situation in real-time.

Challenge 6: Smart home in harmony with a smart bank

Build a solution that integrates products in the smart home with the bank services to order and pay for goods and services (i.e. subscriptions, utility bills, food, security services, insurance), inform client about the upcoming expenses, overdue payments and promote context-based products (i.e. open savings account for house repairs, take loan for new entertainment system).

Challenge 7: Your ideas for modern banking and fintech

Participants can freely choose the challenge for which they will be finding a solution.

We will develop at most 15 ideas / teams. A team has 3 – 5 members.

Product's intellectual property

The hackathon will follow the open-innovation concept where everyone (participants, mentors, organizers, partners …) contribute with their ideas and considerations, but only share the information that they think they can reveal without establishing any claims to third parties (if someone has a business secret and shares it at the weekend, it is assumed that they revealed it voluntarily, without any right to demand anything from third parties). The organizers do not interfere with relationships inside the team. Of course, every participant, by participating at the hackathon, guarantees and promises that their contribution is exclusively the result of original work and does not violate any ownership or intellectual rights of any third clients.

Venture Factory is organizing the hackathon predominantly with the purpose of connecting active stakeholders in the ecosystem. We will strive for this to result in as many connections and startups, developing into various business collaborations.

Application and timeline

STEP 1: Online registration of the individual or team – until 22 November
STEP 2: Contacting the applicants and choosing weekend participants – until 24 November
STEP 3: Fintech Hackathon – 1 and 2 December
STEP 4: Continuing to work with chosen individuals and teams

Location and logistics

The Fintech Hackathon will take place on 1 and 2 December in the facilities of Venture Factory – business incubator of the University of Maribor, which is located on Ulica škofa Maksimilijana Držečnika 6 in Maribor. The organizers will ensure that there will be enough food and refreshments, and of course energy drinks as well :)

The location of the innovation weekend will have a space for your sleeping bag and sleeping mat if you’ll need a couple of hours of sleep. The possibility of using a shower will also be ensured. In case you want more comfortable accommodation, there is plenty of it in Maribor.

Event programme

Friday, 1.12.2017

08:00 – 09:00 Registration and gathering of participants

09:00 – 09:30 Warm-up & presentation of the event’s schedule

09.30 – 10.00 Presentation of fintech challenges with Letitia Seglah*, Startup Manufactory, London

10:00 – 11:00 Pitching ideas and forming teams

11:00 – 14:00 Team work

14:00 – 15:00 Lunch and networking with mentors

15:00 – 17:00 1:1 work with mentors

17:00 – 19:00 Team work

19.00 – 20:00 Dinner

20:00 – 24:00 Team work

24:00 Night shift for the strongest ones

Saturday, 2.12.2017

08:00 – 09:00 Breakfast and warm-up

09:00 – 09:30 The art of pitching

09:30 – 11:00 Team work

11:00 – 13:00 1:1 work with mentors

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch with mentors

14:00 – 17:00 Team work and submitting presentations

17:00 – 18:00 Presenting team projects before the expert jury

18:00 – 19:00 Dinner & jury’s decision about the winners

19:00 – 20:00 Winners’ announcement and final gathering

*Letitia Seglah is an independent consultant for the field of Fintech & RegTech, among others also advising financial institutions such as Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Barclays, HSBC in Blackrock. She is an expert specialized for compliance and regulations, collaborating with numerous global regulators. She also offers her clients support with delivery and processes of ordering technologies for the needs of FinTech and RegTech as well as in developing clients’ own tech solutions. She further carries out services in corporate innovation, RegTech and FinTech, and helps startup companies with financing and growth. Before Letitia became an independent consultant, she dedicated her career to research on equity and credit risk. She completed her master’s in finance at the London School of Economics.

The organizers reserve the right to change the schedule, depending on the final number of participants.

TOP mentoring team

A TOP-NOTCH team of business and tech mentors will ensure support and help. Each team will be joined by one mentor who will be their “supporter”. The mentor will advise them, share experience and, if needed, connect them with other mentors at the event.

The main coordinators of the mentoring team at the innovation weekend are:

Aleš Živkovič from Nova KBM, main engine of innovation, development and digital transformation of Nova KBM. Aleš will take care of content support of the broadest Nova KBM team.
Luka Topolovec, cofounder and CEO of EqualEyes, who won the famous TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon in London with his team. Luka will coordinate TOP tech and business mentors from the Slovenian startup ecosystem.
Jure Verhovnik, Venture Factory team member, who will make sure that the event’s organization and programme run smoothly.

Evaluation criteria

The expert jury will evaluate three aspects of developed solutions, namely:

Technological aspect of the solution: the solution’s concept and innovativeness, innovative use of technologies, quality of the solution 50 points
The user experience of the solution: the solution’s design, its value for the user, market potential 30 points
Personal presentation before the jury: clear and convincing presentation of the solution 20 points

The expert jury consists of esteemed experts and entrepreneurs who will also be at your disposal for quality feedback on your solutions and presentations.

Organizers and partners

The innovation weekend is organized as part of the Start:up Maribor programme, whose main partner is Venture Factory, business incubator of the University of Maribor, supported by the Municipality of Maribor.

The strategic partner of Venture Factory and the central partner of the Fintech Hackathon is Nova KBM, which attempts to strengthen connections with innovative talents and startup companies. The bank recognized the potential for building a strong startup community and the potential for reaching synergies through collaboration, and ensured challenges as well as prizes for the participants.

Already traditionally, company Večer is standing by our side for the promotion. They are the media partner for the entire Start:up Maribor programme and a strong supporter of talents and startup companies.