Hack The Hub to focus on fintech challenges this weekend

SOFTWARE developers and tech insiders will gather in Belfast this weekend as the city hosts the return of the ‘Hack The Hub’ event.

The competition, styled as a “hackathon”, brings experienced developers and students together to come up with new ideas and solutions.

This year’s event will focus on the Nordics’ thriving fintech sector, by analyzing challenges within the burgeoning industry.

Hack The Hub founder Conor Graham said the Belfast event will take inspiration from the major ‘Money 20/20’ conference, exploring themes such as trust, identity and using data to predict credit risk.

“We’re incredibly excited to host another #HackTheHub event on October 15, bringing together some of the best minds in the industry for an exciting and innovative day,” Graham said.

“Financial technology, or ‘fintech’, is a term used to describe the convergence of finance and technology. Right now, it’s one of the fastest growing industries in the world, but it can be difficult to keep up with all the changes.

“Money 20/20 was a big inspiration for this year’s hackathon as it was clear that there were a number of challenges being faced in areas such as open banking, trust and payments. So in collaboration with some of the leading fintech players in the ecosystem, we have set the teams a challenge focused on this.”

The sell-out event takes place at Lanyon Quay on Saturday, hosted by main sponsor and data quality specialist, Datactics

Fiona Browne, head of software development and ML at Datactics, said: “Collaboration, cutting-edge innovation, ambition and great service are at the heart of Datactics as it is for #HackTheHub where we tackle complex challenges around data in the Fintech sector. This combined with a community event is why we continue to sponsor and support #HackTheHub.

“As a scale-up company, we are moving fast and #HackTheHub offers the perfect opportunity for us to network and engage with great technologists, designers across mutual disciplines. We value innovative ideas, clear goals, community and collaboration and see Looking forward to seeing how the teams tackle the Fintech challenge at this Hackathon.”

Former hackathon winner Jillian Keenan said the connections made at the event had been invaluable.

“Many of the people I met are people I am still in touch with and meet at other events. It also allowed me to connect with some people that I hadn’t seen in a long time due to the pandemic, which was special to me, said the software engineer.

Those who participate without a team will be connected with others who have free skills and experience levels will be distributed so that students and experts can work together.

This event is currently sold out, but you can join the waiting list via hackthehub.com.