On July 19 and 20, teams from the UK, India, Hungary, Germany, Hong Kong, US, Russia and Singapore will work around the clock to design a ground-breaking app for Cure Leukaemia, one of the German bank's UK Charities of the Year.

Gareth Southgate is a supporter of the charity, which was set up by former Crystal Palace teammate Geoff Thomas.

"The whole football world was shocked by Geoff’s blood cancer diagnosis in 2003 and I am in awe of all he has done to help other patients since then," says Southgate. "Hearing that Deutsche Bank staff across the world are going to help Cure Leukaemia design a mobile app that could transform the lives of blood cancer patients on a global scale is incredibly exciting. I wish all the participants the very best of luck for the Hackathon.”

The Hackathon challenge is to create an app which gives worldwide Leukaemia sufferers and their families access to resources that connects them to patients through a dedicated Cure Leukaemia community. This will offer information on their illness and suggestions that can help them throughout their illness, including ways to strengthen self-esteem and mental wellbeing, diet advice and what to expect from their treatment.

Paul Shepheard, Head of Development Engineering from Deutsche Bank, said: “Great hackathons rely on having inspiring, challenging problems for engineers and designers to solve. From our very first conversation, it was clear that Cure Leukaemia had just that.”

The Cure Leukaemia hackathong follows on from a 2016 challenge run by the bank which saw more than 150 of its technology and design experts from around the world compete to build a prototype smartphone app for autism charity Autistica.