PhonePe, NITI Aayog team up to launch fintech open hackathon

New Delhi, Feb. 17 (IANS): Leading digital payments platform PhonePe on Thursday announced that NITI Aayog, in association with the platform, will be hosting the first-ever open-to-all hackathon that aims to showcase path-breaking solutions for the fintech ecosystem.

The Hackathon will provide an opportunity for innovators, digital creators and developers from all over India to think, ideate and code.

Winning teams stand to win exciting cash prizes worth INR 5 lakhs, the platform said in a statement.

Participants at the hackathon need to use any open-data APIs like PhonePe Pulse along with frameworks such as Account Aggregator as a foundation to power the use cases, such as alternate risk models for lending, insurance or investments with a focus on financial inclusion; innovative products that use the power data signals for various demographics and geos for broader adoption of financial services; improved visualisation and derived intelligence based on the digital payments data.

Participating teams can have one or up to five participants. They can use data sources like PhonePe Pulse, the Open Government Data Platform and RBI reports on payments to build on their submission.

In addition, they can access any other open data platforms that they are aware of along with the Setu AA Sandbox or the Setu Payments Sandbox to develop their hacks. By the end of the event, participants will be required to present a working prototype of their hack to the judges, post which each hack will be judged based on certain parameters.

While the judges consider the hacks, they might ask for additional information on the prototypes.

The winning team will be awarded INR 1,50,000. Two teams, in second and third places, will win INR 1 lakh and INR 75,000, respectively.

However, PhonePe mentioned that judges may decide to award fewer or more prizes depending on the hacks submitted.

The last date to register for the event is February 23 and the deadline to submit the final entries is February 25 by noon.

There will be a live AMA on February 21 at 4 pm to answer any questions the participants may have about the Hackathon. The winners of the Hackathon will be announced on February 28.

The NITI Aayog fintech month commenced on February 7 and the week witnessed some thought-provoking keynotes, in-depth fireside chats, and panel discussions.