Stellenbosch University
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Successful first fintechathon at SU
Author: Corporate Communications/Korporatiewe Kommunikasie (Rozanne Engel)
Published: 23/08/2018


Stellenbosch University (SU), in partnership with LaunchLab and Innovus, held a successful first fintech-themed hackathon recently. According to Camille de Villiers, Technology Transfer Officer at Innovus, the judges were very impressed with what the students were capable of achieving in such a short time.

“The pitches and ideas were all of such a high standard that the judges had difficulty choosing the ultimate winner. Some of the teams coded throughout the night on Saturday on their mobile cashless solutions. During the pitching event on Sunday afternoon, the student teams presented great workable demos of their apps and cashless mobile solutions," says De Villiers.

The fintechathon was sponsored by Entersekt and Capitec Bank and happened over the weekend of 17 to 19 August. The aim of the event was to get students to come up with innovative ideas to create seamless payments or information-sharing experiences for consumers.

“Thirty-six students took part in this first fintechathon making up nine teams. At the start of the event, the industry sponsors set and introduced the problem statements and, at the end, there was a pitching session where the most innovative team with the best solution won a grand prize to the value of R15 000, while there were two runner-up teams each winning a prize of R5000."

Anita Nel, CEO of Innovus, first welcomed the students and industry experts Schalk Nolte, CEO of Entersekt, and Francois Dempers, Digital Solutions Manager: Innovation at Capitec, then shared some of their experiences in the financial and business sectors.

Some of the perks at the event included a barista offering bottomless cups of coffee, popcorn machines and wholesome meals to keep the students fuelled for focus. The participants also received goody bags, T-shirts and mugs.

Entersekt and Capitec's developers were available throughout the weekend as mentors to assist the students if they were stuck or wanted to incorporate new or unknown technology into their solutions.

The pitches were judged by Gerhard Oosthuizen, CTO of Entersekt, Francois Dempers, Manager of Innovation for Digital Solutions at Capitec Bank and Tremaine Hector, successful entrepreneur and alumnus of SU's Business School.

The winning team consisted of Joseph Visser (BSc Honours Computer Science), Shaun Wurdeman (BSc Honours Computer Science), Ieuan Uys (third year BSc Computer Science) and Elke van der Walt (BSc Honours Computer Science). They created an app called “Disconnekt", which utilises the connectivity of Bluetooth beacons to process payments.

Uys, one of the members of the winning team, was very excited about being part of this first fintechathon and could not thank Innovus enough. “Winning was an absolute rush and the cherry on the top for the weekend. It also gave us a lot of confidence in ourselves and confirmation of our skill and creativity. I can say that my whole team had so much fun this weekend. We are really thankful for Innovus for the role they played in organising the fintechathon."

Another member of the winning team reiterated the same sentiments. “I'm so thankful for Innovus hosting such an event; I believe it was a tremendous success. I hope it is the first of many," said Visser.

Photo of Hackathon winners.