Oana Coșman
The 5 days remote competition taking place between 29 September - 3 October 2021 will challenge fintechs from 10 European countries (Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Greece) to build value creation applications on top of the battle tested Open Banking data aggregation platform provided by Finqware.
All selected teams will treceive product and business advice from top jurors and mentors, as well as numerous partner benefits.
Winners will get a chance at Proof of Concept partnerships, special prizes and up to 5,000 € in cash.
With the support of all the partners who have joined forces, Open Banking Hackathon has become the innovation “Eurovision” contest for fintech in the CEE, offering teams more than just a competition, but an international network for acceleration and growth.
“The hackathon was a very pleasant experience for us! We had fun and learned a lot from the interactions and open discussions with mentors and other participants. This helped us a lot in working through our idea and defining it better. It was a great opportunity for us to meet new people and help our team collaborate better”, says Alexandru Martiniuc - Spevialk, Romania, 2020 Special Prize Winner.
Previous editions have shown that Open Banking Hackathon is the perfect launchpad for all dev teams and fintechs to kickstart their projects.
“OBH drove us to launch as a business. Through the acceleration of the program we hit roadblocks faster and learned lessons sooner. Our experience with the hackathon was fantastic - the best organized online event we have been in. The 1:1 and small group interview/ challenge/ mentoring sessions were extremely valuable in consolidating ideas, improving presentation and helping us understand the many common questions, skeptical perspectives or criticisms we would be likely to hit”, declares Shaun Daley – TimedFX, Czech Republic, 2020 Grand Winner.
Having as technology partners Google Cloud, the event is also supported by important banks like Banca Comerciala Romana, Alpha Bank, Raiffeisen Bank International, OTP Bank and the National Bank of Romania. Along with them the international law firm CMS and technology companies QUALITANCE and ZITEC have also partnered in the event, interested to see Open Banking getting traction in the financial industry. As supporting partners, DHL Express Romania, Mindspace Bucharest and Digital Intelligence are offering their premises and services to secure a successful hackathon.
The supporting partners interested to contribute to the success of the event are fintech associations, innovation communities and startup accelerators from Austria (Pioneers, Elevator Lab, Advantage Austria), Czech Republic (Czech Fintech Association), Hungary (OTP Lab), Romania (Techcelerator, InnovX-BCR, Rofin.Tech, Startup Grind Bucharest), Bulgaria (Eleven Accelerator, Bulgaria Fintech), Slovakia (Slovak Fintech) with many more discussing to join the event.
Registrations for the hackathon are open until the 19th of September 2021.
