Equity Group, in partnership with Microsoft, has launched a virtual hackathon open to students from The University of Nairobi and Meru University of Science and Technology. The Hackathon, which opened for registration on 4th February, saw a total of 663 students from the two universities registered to be among the 100 shortlisted participants to take part as innovators.
The Hackathon is the first of its kind to be run by the Group and seeks to drive innovation and crowdsource solutions to address business problems and social issues. Students from the two universities will have an opportunity to take part in a competitive event and collaborate to build proofs of concept and minimum viable products for a pre-defined problem.
Speaking during the launch, Equity Group Managing Director and CEO, Dr. James Mwangi said the Group seeks to explore the use of Hackathons as a tool to drive the discovery of new technologies and process improvement solutions for the Bank.
Microsoft Kenya Country Manager, Kendi Ntwiga noted that the country stands a chance to be a global player in innovations through a collaborative effort on the part of University and industry linkage.
Operational business units from the Bank underwent a rigorous process to identify and craft business and social problem statements, which the students participating in the Equity Hackathon will attempt to solve. These challenges fall within the Payments, Financial Inclusion and Know Your Customer thematic areas.
The Hackathon is set to run from the 17th February to 17th March this year and has been phased into 4 stages. The first phase will involve instructor-led and self-paced training of the participants on Microsoft Azure and the Business Problem Statements. In the second stage, the students will go through the coding with mentorship from representatives from Equity, University of Nairobi, Meru University of Science and Technology and Microsoft. Their solutions will then go through a 1st and 2nd knock off stage, that will culminate in the selection of the 3 winners.
University students taking part in the Hackathon event will stand a chance to win exciting prizes. The grand prize winner or winning group will walk away with a cash prize of Kes. 600,000, 3 months mentorship opportunity from Microsoft, Technical Cloud certificates for all team members and a gift hamper. In addition, the 1st and 2nd Runners Up individual or group will take home a cash prize of Kes. 250,000 and Kes. 150,000 respectively, in addition to a 3 months mentorship opportunity from Microsoft and a gift hamper.
