Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN), one of the largest worldwide providers of payment solutions, today announced the winners of its interactive wearable financial app hackathon, which took place on October 24-25, 2014 in Atlanta in collaboration with CaixaBank in Barcelona.
The FinAppsParty hosted 42 talented developers, designers and programmers of mobile payments apps that competed in teams over a 24-hour period. A panel of judges comprised of financial services and technical experts from Global Payments, Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) and TTV Capital selected the following winners:
- Grand prize: Garcon!: Created by Scott Hankinson and Brian O'Connor; provides users with a wearable app allowing streamlined checkout, multi-factor authentication, tagging, transaction history and purchase voiding.
- 2nd prize: Dichotomy: Created by Dominique Bashizi and Nathan Black; allows users to use voice matching for transaction authentication.
- 3rd prize: Charge Forward: Created by Joslyn Beckert, Kevin Coleman, Nebi Erdogan and Haider Khan; presents an innovative payment method selection that activates your top payment choices simply from your wrist position.
CaixaBank has run the FinAppsParty mobile app programming marathon since 2011, and for the first time in its history, the FinAppsParty was simultaneously held in Atlanta and Barcelona. The two venues (the Atlanta Tech Village and Palo Alto Foundation in Barcelona) were connected by a video link, allowing the participants in both locations to interact and share ideas via social networks. The bank was one of the first anywhere in the world to adopt the hackathon format, seeking to harness collective intelligence and co-creation to drive innovation. CaixaBank has been an international pioneer in the development of financial services for wearable devices, with the launch of the world's first banking application for smartwatches as well as an application for Google Glass.
Winners from CaixaBank's event will be announced at the awards ceremony during the BDigital Apps congress which will take place November 11-12, 2014 in Barcelona.
"The response to our hackathon was overwhelming and has allowed us to engage personally with extremely creative and innovative app developers," said Chief of Staff Jane Elliott. "We are thrilled with the results of the event that showcased the amazing talent located right in our own backyard of Atlanta. We are grateful to CaixaBank for allowing us to partner with them on an event that has been successful in Barcelona since 2011."