- Intelligent Environments, the international provider of innovative mobile and online solutions for financial services providers, have held their second hackathon of 2016
- The winning team produced an innovative idea enabling customers to speak directly to their bank through a bot
After three highly successful Hackathons in 2015 and 2016, Intelligent Environments held their fourth Hackathon on 21st-22nd July 2016.
Four teams took part, with participants from Intelligent Environments offices in Kingston and Belfast. As usual, each team was comprised of staff from a range of the company’s departments, from developers to marketers.
In an exciting change, all Intelligent Environments staff were invited to submit problem statements based on real world scenarios they have encountered. Over 30 were submitted, ranging from developing an event app to integrating Interact, Intelligent Environments’ product, with the Amazon Echo.
Meeting at 9am on 21st July, each team had around 30 hours to solve the problem statement they had selected. All hackers worked tirelessly through the night, spending their time mind-mapping, coding, and creating a presentation to showcase their idea.
Jerry Mulle, Director of Sales and Marketing at Intelligent Environments and one of the Hackathon judges, said “This Hackathon has been one of the best yet in my opinion. Each team demonstrated an outstanding level of ingenuity, and came up with truly outstanding solutions to some tricky problem statements.”
In a first for the Intelligent Environments Hackathon, there were judging criteria for the best sales pitch and best marketing strategy in the presentation section of the Hackathon. Mulle continues “Adding these two categories significantly improved the quality of the Hackathon presentations, making for a highly entertaining afternoon of demonstrations and sales pitches.”
The winning concept, from team Deus ex Machina, created a brand new software which connected Interact to a messenger bot to answer FAQs and other queries, which reduces call centre staff time.
Mulle continues, ‘The winning team displayed a level of ingenuity and creative thought that set them apart. They came up with a great concept, and utilised the wide range of skills that each person brought to the team. All the teams did a great job, and it was very close contest. I and the rest of the judging panel would like to congratulate everyone that participated in the Hackathon.’
Following the positive reaction to the Hackathon and in view of the concepts generated, the company is looking to incorporate some of the ideas into Interact®, Intelligent Environments established mobile and online financial services platform.
