Urban Tech Challenge, Russia’s largest hackathon organized by Deworkacy, was recently held in Moscow. The event was supported by the Moscow Government. National Settlement Depository (NSD), Russia’s central securities depository, was one of the hackathon’s partners.
Software developers from 25 Russian regions and 10 foreign countries participated in the event (held during the first week of December). 1,700 applications to participate in the hackathon had been submitted; 500 people received invitations from event organizers.
The hackathon’s goal was to select the best software developers focused on creating new digital services. NSD, as the hackathon’s partner, proposed that participants develop a prototype of an application or a website for individuals that would allow to assess the securities market and to recommend the best securities for investing.
Thirteen teams were registered in the track organized by NSD. A team “Portonomika” won the competition; it presented a product which better met the established conditions.
“Hackathon is a unique platform for companies striving to go beyond routine tasks when creating innovative services. We were happy to see a lot of interesting ideas. We will, of course, use many of them. Financial services remain a sphere of significant opportunities to develop digital solutions that will contribute to the inflow of investments and the economic development of our country,” said Pavel Andrianov, IT Director, NSD.
Irina Antonova, HR Director, NSD, added: “This is our first experience in supporting Russia’s largest hackathon. Acting as a partner, we were focused on solving a few tasks. Firstly, we were able to assess the potential of IT specialists in the HR market. We saw how Russia’s best developers worked; in the future, we may consider them as candidates for our team, and this is very important for implementing our financial service digitalization strategy. Secondly, NSD experts at different levels were involved in the hackathon; this motivated them, and provided a source for new ideas and projects. And thirdly, we succeeded in testing out a few important innovative solutions.”