Not too way back, every time I heard the phrase ‘hackathon,’ I considered Wreck-It Ralph from the Disney motion pictures. Ralph was a online game character tasked with wrecking buildings, whereas Repair-It Felix would restore them.
In Wreck-It Ralph 2, Ralph broke the web. I used to suppose hackathons have been solely meant to interrupt issues or present weaknesses in your programs or defenses so you may repair them earlier than dangerous actors discover them.
I’ve since realized that whereas hackathons could also be used to interrupt programs and defenses, they’re extra doubtless for use to additional or improve merchandise and options. For anybody else who didn’t know, a hackathon is an occasion the place people or groups collaborate intensively over a set time period to create options to particular issues or develop revolutionary initiatives. Hackathons are well-liked within the tech trade and academia – which can be why I by no means heard a lot about them in my earlier banking profession.
Curious minds collaborate on the SAS Hackathon
Hackathons foster innovation and artistic problem-solving in a high-energy, collaborative surroundings. That’s why SAS, together with longtime SAS companions Microsoft and Intel, has been coordinating the SAS Hackathon for the previous couple of years. It’s a fabulous means for people to get entry to the instruments and software program that solely SAS can provide, corresponding to SAS® Viya®, SAS® Viya® Workbench, SAS® Information Maker, and numerous AI-powered options.
Throughout the SAS Hackathon, groups of knowledge scientists, enterprise analysts, know-how fanatics from all kinds of firms and college students come collectively – typically just about throughout continents – to community, study from one another and from an SAS mentor, and experiment with new applied sciences that spark innovation and enhance lives.
This 12 months’s SAS Hackathon boasted 1,731 registrants from greater than 70 nations. This led to an all-time excessive of 145 authorized groups that participated within the month-long hack, supported by 110 SAS mentors.
Twelve banking-focused entries made it by way of the SAS Hackathon. On this weblog publish, I’ll evaluate just a few of those entries and summarize the important thing themes the banking trade hackers introduced.
A bundle of banking hacks
Groups selected their respective hacks, and there have been some widespread themes. The most well-liked was optimizing monetary inclusion for the unbanked and underbanked. Groups from creating nations and developed nations addressed entry to conventional banking companies and credit score. These are very altruistic hacks, certainly, as getting and conserving extra individuals within the banking system helps enhance financial prosperity.
The second hottest theme among the many banking groups centered on banks’ advertising and gross sales organizations, significantly figuring out the subsequent finest product to supply. Many banks battle on this space, aspiring to match the experience of main digital e-commerce firms.
There have been two hacks associated to spending. One centered on optimizing bank card loyalty applications by tailoring incentives for every buyer. One other aimed to teach customers on how their spending helps native companies, encouraging them to prioritize native purchases and increase the native economic system.
Different hacks concerned predicting closing inventory costs, utilizing AI to research procurement paperwork for fraud or errors and addressing widespread challenges in department design and staffing.
And the banking winner is …
SAS celebrates the hackathon with winners in 25 regional, trade, know-how, specialty and scholar classes. The successful groups signify companies, authorities companies, nonprofits, universities, and SAS companions.
This 12 months’s banking winner, Raffles Vietnam, created a generative AI-based answer that manages coverage paperwork, identifies conflicts and streamlines enterprise rule configuration.
Regtech is a rising space in monetary companies, and Raffles Vietnam tapped into this ache level. As a result of wide selection and huge variety of insurance policies, many banks face coverage complexity that may result in misunderstandings and misalignment.
SAS accomplice Raffles Information & Analytics created RAGI, a GenAI answer constructed on SAS Viya. With RAGI, banks can automate the extraction of enterprise guidelines and information fields from coverage paperwork and resolve conflicts or gaps in credit score insurance policies.
RAGI can also translate coverage and product paperwork into enterprise necessities for enterprise guidelines for resolution engine configurations. By seamlessly integrating with SAS® Clever Decisioning, RAGI drastically reduces the time to marketplace for new insurance policies and merchandise by minimizing deployment time and errors.
By decreasing the time to research coverage and product documentation, RAGI cuts IT and resolution engine implementation time by 50 %.
Bringing the pitch to life
As a part of the SAS Hackathon, all groups should report last presentation movies to show and promote their answer. Groups take completely different approaches to those movies; some are humorous, whereas others are very skilled, and nonetheless others use AI voiceovers.
Whereas Important Pondering Crew didn’t win an award, I wish to acknowledge their very artistic video. Like me with my Wreck-It Ralph visions, the workforce had wrecking or combating in thoughts as nicely. Their Godzilla monster-like theme stood out, and their matter, Finance Fighters 2, definitely meshed nicely with that theme.
Important Pondering Crew developed a retro-inspired recreation that makes use of AI to visualise company monetary and non-financial information as fighters. The sport permits customers to simulate battles and acquire insights into firm strengths and weaknesses.
Get your hack on
In the long run, Wreck-It Ralph actually didn’t wish to break issues. He dreamed of changing into a hero.
Perhaps you do, too. Do you’ve what it takes to hack a difficult situation and develop a artistic answer that would make a distinction on the earth?
