Eurobank’s 3d “Beyond Hackathon” Competition was successfully completed in June 22 – 24, 2018 in cooperation with the business partners Found.ation and The Cube.
The Regional Fintech Competition “Beyond Hackathon” is part of Eurobank’s consistent strategy to boost innovation and youth entrepreneurship, with the aim of upgrading financial services and products.
Twenty teams took part in this year’s Competition, following an evaluation process that preceded the final phase of the Competition. For another year “Beyond Hackathon” was supported by Eurobank Group Banks: Eurobank a.d. Beograd and Eurobank Bulgaria AD. Entries were submitted by teams from Greece, Bulgaria, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates (Dubai) and Serbia. Especially regarding the participation from Greece, applications were also received from teams in different cities like Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Chalkida and Serres.
The Competition started on Friday afternoon, June 22, 2018. Mr. Stavros Ioannou, Eurobank Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Dr. Marie Bountrogianni, Dean of “The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education” at Ryerson University, based in Canada and member of “Beyond Hackathon” judging committee addressed the event. Dr. M. Bountrogianni visited Athens for the activation of the agreement signed by Eurobank and Ryerson University in Canada, aiming to provide the Greek start-up ecosystem with new opportunities for business networking and access of Greek entrepreneurs to upgraded educational programs.
Mr. St. Ioannou stated: “Eurobank supports actively healthy and innovative entrepreneurs for their development in Greece and abroad. We are well aware that there are no borders in technology and we recognize the big challenges that the financial sector faces and in this light too. Supporting and further developing the Fintech ecosystem, being in its first steps in Greece, can prove to be in the benefit of all. Eurobank chooses to position itself in this field, actively and in time, implementing initiatives like “Beyond Hackathon”.”
Dr. M. Bountrogianni stated: “Ryerson University is delighted with the cooperation started with Eurobank. Although Ryerson and Eurobank may be separated by a great distance, this partnership is a strong demonstration of the power of international partnership. It is critical for Greek professionals as well to constantly keep their skills upgraded and have an eye on trends in the global market. I also cannot stress enough the importance of collaboration, perseverance and lifelong learning.”
During Beyond Hackathon, the participants were for the first time given the opportunity to use the Bank’s advanced services, under the support and guidance of qualified and experienced executives in order to implement their ideas more effectively. In particular, all participants were given access to a fully functional dynamic API sandbox with advanced capabilities such as transfers and payments followed by change of account balance, transactions displayed in a transaction list, personalized accounts, etc. In addition, the teams also had the opportunity to access service accounts such as bluemix cloud IBM, Watson APIs for Al-based ideas, and APIs documentation via IBM Connect.
On Sunday, June 24, 2018, the teams presented their ideas before the judging committee. On behalf of Eurobank participated messrs Stavros Ioannou, Eurobank Deputy CEO and Anestis Petridis, Eurobank Group Chief Information Officer. Members of the Committee were also, Dr. Marie Bountrogianni and messrs Vassilis Trapezanoglou representing VIVA Wallet S.A., Aristos Doxiadis representing Big Pi Ventures, Dimitris Kalavros Gousiou representing Velocity.Partners Venture Capital, and Fivos Pantazis representing Speedinvest (Si) FinTech Opportunities Fund & Pipeline Capital Management.
The prizes by Eurobank to the two winners of the Competition (€7.000 και €3.000 respectively) were awarded as follows:
1st Award went to the team “ExpendZen” with Nikos Pappas, Konstantinos Oikonomou, Konstantinos Triantafyllakis, Irini Degleri and George Mavridis. Their idea was about an expense management platform and corporate card payment solution that automates expense reporting and simplifies company spending.
2d Award went to team “Tenderly” with Vukoje Vukašin, Bencic Andrej, Urosevic Nebojsa and Habic Bogdan from Serbia. They developed a marketplace for small & medium sized enterprises that facilitates their cooperation with bigger companies based on private blockchain technology.
“Beyond Hackathon” was actively supported by global industry leaders in technology and financial services, Greek business associations and academic institutions that provided mentoring to participants throughout the Competition. Leading companies contributed to the Competition with in-kind sponsorships.
For more details please visit our website http://www.beyondhackathon.com/ and Facebook http://www.facebook.com/BeyondHackathon page.