Deadline: Ongoing
Apply for the DataHack for Financial Inclusion (DataHack4FI) Innovation Competition 2019. The DataHack for Financial Inclusion (DataHack4FI) is an African innovation competition that encourages finance, tech and data enthusiasts to collaborate in using data and analytics to solve business challenges and extend financial services to underserved communities.
The DataHack4FI Innovation Competition promotes the use of data and data analytics to solve challenges experienced by individuals or communities. The competition encourages Pan-African collaboration by creating opportunities for data enthusiasts and emerging tech companies to partner in developing solutions that address local financial and economic inclusion-related challenges.
Competition Format
Participating tech companies will be paired with a data enthusiast and these teams will have access to mentorship from data science and business experts during the competition. Teams will need to engage with relevant data to design innovative products/services, which will be judged during the in-country finals. The most promising teams will progress to the second stage of the competition, where they will showcase their prototype solutions to the judges at the Grand Finale.
Prizes
- In-country winners each receive US$ 5,000 in seed capital
- In-country winners + runners-up are sponsored to attend Grand Finale
- Grand Finale winning team receives US$ 25,000 in seed capital
- Certificate of participation awarded to paired data enthusiasts
Eligibility
- Stratup must be a registered, post-revenue tech business
- Must have a product currently in the market
- Must exhibit a scalable business model and ambition for growth
- Must have generated data that provides meaningful insight and that enables the development of new or improved products/services aimed at advancing financial and economic inclusion
DataHack4FI solution requirements:
- Solution must address a local challenge relating to financial and economic inclusion
- Solution must represent a newly developed product/service or an enhancement of existing offerings (NB: developed through innovative data use)
- Proposed solution must be viable and must demonstrate potential for release to market
Selection Criteria
The overall DataHack4FI Season 3 winner will be selected based on:
- Engagement with data science in solution design
- Viability of the business
- Potential impact in terms of financial and economic inclusion
Application
For more information, visit DataHack4FI.
