How We Hacked 2020 – BBVA Hackathon produced by SG

COVID-19 came along to change our lives in so many ways, and those of us who love learning to build things with code were not immune to this fact. So when we began planning this year’s BBVA Hackathon with the team at Open Innovation BBVA, we knew we had our work cut out for ourselves.

A Virtual Hackathon, 2020 edition

We set the bar high – we wanted to increase our reach and impact, particularly with women interested in getting involved with technology. From October 16th to 18th over 200 coaches, facilitators, and BBVA challenge owners cooperated with 792 hackathon participants in twelve challenges that covered issues from identity theft and fraud to social listening. The twelve challenges, designed by BBVA’s own Open Innovation team, were 

• Reimagining digital identity through biometrics (Reimaginando la identidad digital mediante biometría)
• Intelligent interpreter (Interpretador inteligente)
• Social Listening 
• Fraud Identification and Challenge (Identificación y Reto de Fraude)
• Geolocated offers (Ofertas geolocalizados)
• Data integration and visualization (Integración y visualización de datos)
• Speech analytics
• Educación financiera Integración de IA / Avatar (Financial literacy AI / Avatar integration)
• My Green Thumbprint (Mi Huella Verde)

As facilitators, we were able to see first hand how teams approached their challenges, from forming their teams remotely weeks before the event, to breaking down the challenges into smaller parts, their focus and dedication to working together was really inspiring. Thanks to the coaches, the hackers the BBVA Hackathon had around the clock support from experts to guide them on the path to producing a solution to each of their challenges. 

The prizes were varied but the Hackathon BBVA winners took home 80,000.00 pesos MXN. Over 3500 people registered to participate and during the hackathon 344 women a d 448 men formed over 140 teams to solve the 10 challenges. 

So what is next for 2021? 

Honestly, we don’t know. We wish we had a crystal ball. But whatever the outcome, we know that if you want to participate in 2021’s edition of Hackathon BBVA all you have to do is follow https://twitter.com/RevistaSG and stay tuned for more information.

Hackathon BBVA 2020 {stay:[‘home’, ‘inspired’, ‘coding’]}