From 9 to 11 June, Co.Station, one of the largest start-up and scale-up communities in Belgium with offices in Brussels and Ghent, will host BNP Paribas’ International hackathon. Developers and programmers in 10 cities around the world will look at the challenges that the financial world has to face today. Belgian creatives from the digital sector can register now and thus try to win the first prize: a 20.000€ worth incubation of their project within BNP Paribas Fortis.
Innovating with creative minds
BNP Paribas and BNP Paribas Fortis organize the Belgian event. Participants in the BNP Paribas international hackathon will have the opportunity to collaborate on a concrete project and to learn how to present and share their ideas with the community of creative entrepreneurs. The winners in each city will be invited to present their project before BNP Paribas’ management team in Paris.
The hackathon is not only open to the academic world and to start-ups and scale-ups, but also to big companies interested in innovating in the financial world.
“This hackathon is an opportunity for start-ups to become familiar with the way a bank works and to create new contacts. This is an opportunity for our bank to address to creative start-ups in the making. This may, alongside other initiatives, encourage innovation and provide even better service to our customers” – Kim Ngân Tran, Chief Innovation Office at BNP Paribas.
“Consumer behavior is constantly changing, and this under the pressure of progressive digitalization”, says Wouter Remaut, CoStation’s CEO. “The fintech industry is no exception to this trend. Thanks to corporate venturing, we make big companies in search of innovation meet our scale-ups. The resulting collaboration is interesting in the long term for both parties. They mutually train each other, which represents a major step for the winner in the developing of a possible new successful product.”
During the hackathon, the participants will work on 4 different themes:
- New ways of interacting with our customers: how can a financial institution use new technology to communicate with customers and compete with Internet giants like Facebook and Google? The topics of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, robots and chatbots will be widely discussed.
- New on line services for private banking customers: Consumer behavior has changed dramatically in recent years. Clients expect their bank to evolve at the same time as they do. How can a financial institution support its customers in managing their finances?
- The impact on hardware leasing of shared economy and the Internet of Things: B-to-B customers expect more ease and tailor-made solutions. Based on this statement, how can shared economy contribute to the way customers finance and use their assets? How can the Internet of Things improve customer service?
- Companies use only 10% of their brains: Urban legend or not? Today, most companies are looking for ways to unlock the potential of what they know about their customers, markets, companies, etc. Are there secret models to be discovered and interpreted? Which algorithm to be discovered can support our customers’ strategic decisions? How can we make company data anonymous while retaining it as a usable and eligible asset for the corporate themselves? All of this makes data analytics the most interesting field in which to innovate. So join our hackathon and share your good ideas, algorithms and methods to help our customers exploit the other 90% of their brain!
BNP Paribas’ international hackathon will take place from 9 to 11 of June, simultaneously in 10 different countries around the world. The participants in Brussels, San Francisco, Paris, Rome, Nanjing (China), Singapore, Istanbul, Warsaw, Berlin and Luxembourg will focus all together on how technology can help the financial world and look deeply into the sector’s challenges.
