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The winners of the Online F10 FinTech Hackathon 2020

This year’s F10 FinTech-Hackathon Zurich – the largest FinTech-Hackathon in Europe – had to be run online due to the coronavirus pandemic. The sudden change did not prevent 13 teams with participants from 19 countries from turning their brilliant ideas into prototypes during the ten-day online hackathon. Among the winning teams the Hackathon jury has selected is the Team Hackstreet Bois.

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The F10 FinTech Hackathon Zurich is the largest FinTech Hackathon in Europe. More than 300 tech talents, business people, marketing assistants and lateral thinkers from all over the world applied. Due to the first cases of coronavirus in Switzerland in the last week of February 2020, the F10 Hackathon could not be held on-site in Zurich as planned. Within a week, the coding event was converted into an online hackathon.

Offering this option at such short notice was only possible because the participants, the sponsors, and the F10 team remained agile and pulled together. Video content was created to provide the relevant information, guide through the hackathon, and synchronize and collaborate.

If you want to find more about the F10 FinTech Hackathon Zurich and the latest financial news, check out our companion app, Born2Invest.

One third of the participants were women

For ten days, the participants devoted their free time to coding, brainstorming and discussing with their teammates via a slack channel set up by F10. Challenge leaders SIX (Swiss Exchange), Julius Baer and F10 conducted online question and answer sessions to help participants better understand the challenges of the hackathon.

13 teams submitted prototypes that address the challenges facing the global financial industry. Diversity was an important part of the F10 online hackathon: innovators from 19 countries participated. Almost a third of the players developing new solutions for the global financial industry were women, 52% of the participants were technicians, and the rest came from business. The Hackathon jury has selected the winners, from several prototypes with high potential submitted by the teams.

Groundbreaking business ideas were realized

The first challenge “Brew a Magic Potion for the Cash Warriors”, set by platinum sponsor SIX, was won by Team Hackstreet Bois. The jury particularly liked the efficiency of the business idea designed by Hackstreet Bois and the possibility of making the solution widely available.

SIX had set another Hackathon challenge, inviting participants to use open banking solutions to help banks do business with SMEs. The winner of the SIX SME competition was the eCREDIT team, which had developed a prototype to help SMEs raise capital from banks. In addition to its innovative idea, eCREDIT also impressed the jury with its pitching skills.

The third hackathon challenge “Matchmaking between investors and entrepreneurs”: Club Deal Platform to Enhance Private Banking Services was carried out by the premium sponsor Julius Baer. The Hackathon team Bärcode won this challenge with a systematic combination of the marketplace, social collaboration towards open banking and additional partners. “We feel humbled by the commitment and passion that Bärcode put into the Hackathon,” said Matthias Plattner, Head of Channels & Innovation at Bank Julius Baer.

The winner of the F10 challenge “How Might We Assess the Health of an SME Based on Data?” was LoKal with its solution focused on improving the financial performance of restaurants. “Especially after the coronavirus crisis, restaurants may need solutions like those proposed by LoKal,” explained F10 start-up coach Deborrah Schaer.

F10 as the FinTech Influencer of the year

LoKal also won the golden F10 ticket for the top 25 of the P2 “Prototype to Product” program, which will start in August 2020, in Zurich. F10 FinTech Incubator & Accelerator guides and supports start-ups with innovative companies on their way to successful businesses. Members of the program receive six months of training in Zurich, in close cooperation with major players in the financial, banking, insurance and technology sectors, as well as with experts from various fields.

F10 has repeatedly been ranked among the best incubators and accelerators in Europe and was named “FinTech Influencer of the Year” by the jury of the Swiss FinTech Awards 2020 for its sustainable and comprehensive contribution to FinTech innovation in Switzerland and its expansion to Singapore. “We see that LoKal has the potential to become a start-up and we would like to see them in our P2 incubation program”, said start-up coach Schaer.

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(Featured image by Jonny-Joka via Pixabay)

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First published in moneycab, a third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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Helene Lindbergh is a published author with books about entrepreneurship and investing for dummies. An advocate for financial literacy, she is also a sought-after keynote speaker for female empowerment. Her special focus is on small, independent businesses who eventually achieve financial independence. Helene is currently working on two projects—a bio compilation of women braving the world of banking, finance, crypto, tech, and AI, as well as a paper on gendered contributions in the rapidly growing healthcare market, specifically medicinal cannabis.