The OpenX Hackathon

Be on the cutting edge of OpenX and demonstrate what is possible when your data sources have no borders.

Now

Sandbox open

Month of December

Where

Online

Why take part?

We want to challenge YOU to create something unique with cross-sector data. Work with some of the brightest minds across multiple ecosystems to build innovative solutions with access to all the data sources you can dream of!

Show us and our judges a use-case fit for the future, using financial data and one other source (or more, if you’re feeling competitive).

You’ll have access to the hackathon sandbox throughout the whole of December, so the sooner you enter, the more time you’ll have to play. If you’re a bit of a risk taker (or you’re trying to herd cats into a team) you can register up today and entries must be submitted by 30th December – but don’t blame us if you find yourself wishing you had longer to bring your vision to life!

Entries must be submitted by the 30th of December

The Challenge: Create an innovative cross-sector ecosystem

We are entering the age of the ecosystem.

Consumers now expect seamless experiences, and with cross-sector APIs, the possibilities of what you can offer your audience is endless. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Personalised loyalty schemes

Combining multiple data sources generates useful insights into an individual’s activities and preferences. These can then create personalised offers that really delight and engage. With access to transactional and product data could you build an insight generator?

Digital Probate

When a loved one dies, settling their estate is currently a hugely frustrating (and costly) experience fraught with delay. It doesn’t need to be! A digital probate solution that notifies and closes the deceased’s financial, telecom and utility accounts — all from completing one form — would be hugely beneficial…can you build it?

Travel recommendations

Wouldn’t it be great to have a personal travel assistant who knows your likes and dislikes and only recommends in-budget options? They route you through your most conveniently located transport centres and suggest new experiences to try, based on your preferences? We’ve got the data, can you model this?

Plus one

Or perhaps you just need some additional company at this time of year? By inviting one new source of data into your existing product what kind of exciting happening could you create?

What can you imagine to create value with access to new data sources?

The process

Registration is free, teams and individuals welcome!
Early sign up is highly recommended. Registration closes December 30th and your project must be completed before EOD on the 31st of December.
The sandbox will be open for the entire month of December, allowing you to drop in and out when you have availability. We anticipate actual time spent to be around 2-3 working days — but you can spend as much, or as little, time on it as you like.

The winning entry

Is selected by the judging panel and announced at a networking and drinks evening in London, on January 26th.
Will get to deliver their pitch on stage at the party and show off your inventiveness — start 2023 with praise and recognition.
Interviewed as the winner of the hackathon for a write up on Open Future World.

The Judging Panel

Liz Brandt, Co-founder & CEO at Ctlr-Shift

Liz has over 20 years experience in consulting and has spent the last 14 years building and running innovative businesses that focus primarily on the digital interaction between business and consumers.

Throughout her career Liz has worked both in and for large corporates and has developed deep skills and strong networks across private, public and the third sector. Since the beginning of her career Liz has worked at the disruptive edge, where business, technology and consumers meet. She brings deep and strong experience in the impact of business models and operating environments of the shifting landscape of consumers, digital, trust and value.

Liz combines vision married with evidence and market knowledge, business strategy and operational implementation and the ability to bring together strong teams to deliver extraordinary results.

Nick Cabrera, Co-Founder at Open Future World

Nick is Co-founder and Head of Partnerships at Open Future World, the leading global source of information on progress in open banking and beyond. Since 2000 he has been at the forefront of technology and innovation across many industries, reporting on global developments in telecoms, retail, oil and gas, manufacturing, aviation and more recently in the finance sector, shaping discussions by bringing people together. A keen advocate of digital transformation and the future of data sharing, Nick is always looking for opportunities to bring new sectors together.

Karan Jain, CEO at NayaOne

Karan is a highly regarded finance technologist, bringing unique perspectives and real-life learnings from both financial institutions and start-up trenches. He is a multi-disciplinary CXO with expertise in delivering products to market, strategy, building complex trading applications, developing and leading high-performing teams. Featured on the UK top 30 CIO list, Karan has an in-depth understanding of applying technology to drive business objectives.

He previously launched and successfully exited two businesses, a B2B RegTech and an Agile Delivery Consultancy with a customer base from ASX50. With an in-depth understanding of the finance and tech ecosystem in the UK, US and Australia, Karan is an advisor to trade associations and young businesses. Karan also advises various regulatory WGs and Think Tanks in the domains of Digital Transformation, Cybersecurity, Fintech Partnerships (Sandboxes, toolkits and Synthetic data) and Data (AI and Data sharing).

Tim Johnson, Strategy Director at Raidiam

Raidiam is a company specialising in creating the world’s smartest OpenX data sharing ecosystems.

During his extensive financial services career spanning over 20 years, Tim has advised and delivered innovative projects for credit card and merchant acquiring companies across the globe.

Most recently, he has provided policy and strategic delivery advice for Open Banking in the UK, Open Banking and Open Insurance in Brazil, as well as being instrumental in the development of the award winning Raidiam Connect PaaS ecosystem-in-a-box.

Tim is a keen advocate of OpenX, and is looking forward to the Hackathon.

Ben Nadel, Co-founder and CEO at Credit Canary

Credit Canary is an enterprise SaaS platform that flags borrowers facing financial distress to lenders and engages them before these loans go wrong with digital arrangements to avoid needing collections. Having spent more than 15 years working in financial services, Ben co-founded Woodhurst in 2019, a boutique management consultancy, retained by HSBC, Skipton BS and multiple PE firms. Ben’s passion for open finance began with Woodhurst’s report into the sector in 2020. This led to the forming of SHIFT, an community of fintech founders looking to accelerate the adoption of Open Finance solutions across the UK and beyond. SHIFT is now 70 fintechs strong and is helping them significantly reduce the time it takes to close enterprise SaaS agreements with Financial Institutions.