‘Boutiq” scoops top prize at New South Wales Spark Festival’s digi.spark hackathon

Teams of Australia’s brightest developers turned out for the first digi.spark hackathon in Sydney this weekend as part of the New South Wales Spark Festival. Personal data platform digi.me, in collaboration with Australian partner ID Exchange, and sponsor Alibaba Cloud, hosted a hackathon challenging app developers to deploy Open Banking data to improve the lives of people living in regional communities by empowering them to securely control and share personal data with banks and other service providers.

Team Boutiq took first place for recognising that not everyone can remember a product they found on social media weeks ago. The app uses social (likes), social image cues and your Open Banking data with @digime private sharing & @alibaba_cloud image processing to help you buy things you've always wanted when financially ready.

The innovative idea wins them a trip to China for the Alibaba Cloud Computing Conference in September 2019, along with $10,000 in Alibaba Cloud credits, and digi.me mentorship to help them turn their app concept into reality.

Second Prize (4 airfares trips to regional NSW and $5000 of Alibaba Cloud credits) went to Nola (No Longer Alone), a cancer support app that uses your banking, health and regional location data to calculate the most affordable and convenient treatment for you, while Third Prize, $500 each and $2500 Alibaba Cloud credits, was shared by Team Pacer, for their FinPacer app, that lets you adjust the pace you reach your financial goals and Team Debt Trap, for their My Actuary app, which helps you move money and debt around in smart ways to reduce fees and earn more.

“It’s hackathons like these that are providing the ideas that are so vital in using technology to improve our daily lives”, said Julian Ranger, founder of digi.me. “Our sponsor, Alibaba Cloud, is as committed to innovation as we are, encouraging developers to think in new terms around personal and secure sharing of data.”

Raymond Ma, GM ANZ - Alibaba Cloud said “Alibaba Cloud are pleased to be involved in this fantastic event, driving innovation to support regional areas. The quality of teams has been high and I’m looking forward to seeing the Boutiq app in action in the future.”

The Consumer Data Right and introduction of Open Banking, means there’s more potential than ever for leading tech firms to work with developers to create market-ready apps which empower personal data sharing. The hackathon was organised to ensure that communities in regional New South Wales don’t miss out on the bigger technical resources of major cities, and are offered the same leading-edge products and opportunities as city dwellers.

 “With real-life concepts spanning goal setting, health assistance, debt reduction and tailored marketplaces, the digi.spark hackathon has proven consumer-centric apps can come to life within in 24hrs, setting the pace for the pending Consumer Rights regime” said Joanne Cooper, Managing Director at ID Exchange and hackathon curator.

Competing developers were given a helping hand with the power of secure, private sharing and data compliance capabilities, built into the into the digi.me Consent Access platform. Paired with access to IT infrastructure and cloud services, developers were able to go from idea to app in just two days.

Stewart Brown, Chief Information Officer at Holiday Coast Credit Union, said “The future of banking will have a dependency on Open Banking. Holiday Coast Credit Union are looking forward to working with FinTechs and their Banking Provider to help our members have control of their personal data and to achieve their financial goals in life.”

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About Digi.me Digi.me is a decentralised personal data management platform that allows consumers to privately and securely aggregate data from across their digital lives to share with apps that respect user control of data. Developers can build innovative new apps and insights powered by their SDK and API, or integrate digi.me technology into their existing apps to improve data-driven services. Digi.me connects to over 15,000 sources of personal data and enables companies to meet GDPR data portability requirements by giving customers access to their data with security and reusability. Based in the UK, digi.me merged with Personal from the US in 2017, and is exclusively represented by ID Exchange in Australia. Digi.me also has operations in Iceland.

About ID Exchange 

ID Exchange is a leading RegTech business based at Stone & Chalk in Sydney, developing digital rights access tools and unified platforms that return the control of Personally Identifiable Information to the consumer, ensuring their data is safe, current, accurate and shareable. IDX is the exclusive A/NZ representative of global personal data management platform digi.me.

About Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba Cloud are the cloud computing business unit of Alibaba Group and the third largest public cloud provider in the world with a global suite of over 200 cloud solutions and services to help power and grow businesses. They have 16 regions and 42 availability zones across Asia Pacific and support customers in Australia and New Zealand with two availability zones here in Sydney. 

About Holiday Coast Credit Union

Holiday Coast Credit Union is a financial cooperative based on the Mid North Coast of NSW whose business is also about helping customers who are member owners, structure their personal finances in a way that eases stress and supports the making of wise and informed financial decisions.