AFTER 24 hours of coding and 16 pitches for new digital tools in education, financial services and customer loyalty, the winner at the just-concluded BlueHack Innovation Marathon — the first to be held in Jamaica — was a prototype that reduces the paperwork and loan processing time for creditors and agents.

The hackathon, which was sponsored by International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and National Commercial Bank (NCB), ran from November 4-5 under the theme ‘Jamaica AI nation’ and saw the popular Jamaica Pegasus ballroom, Talk of the Town, transformed into the ultimate hackers headquarters.

The event brought together more than 70 university students, young professionals and start-ups to develop viable prototypes to solve business and societal challenges using IBM’s next generation technologies.

A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest or codefest) is an event where computer programmers and others involved in software and hardware development collaborate intensively on software projects.

IBM Research Scientist Dr Kala Fleming, who conceptualised the event, said cooperation and collaboration with like-minded entities like an IBM, can help to spark a digital revolution which can address the range of growing pains faced by business and government.

“If we can also inculcate a culture that strongly rewards the field of digital innovation with events like this one — this BlueHack — soon, just like for music and sports, we will say, ‘Wi likkle but we tallawah’ about Jamaica’s digital technology,” Fleming added.

For her part, NCB’s Chief Digital and Marketing Officer Nadeen Matthews encouraged the ‘hackers’ to share their vision.

“As you think about your own personal ambitions, don’t be afraid to share it because you think people are going to be naysayers, some people will be and that’s fine. If you know where you are going, don’t worry about those persons,” Matthews said, while noting NCB’s commitment in building the tech eco-system, as it’s the way for the future.

The 16 teams were tasked with developing prototypes to meet one of the following challenges: Learning experience solutions — transforming learning using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology; blockchain solutions — simplifying financial services; and next-generation consumer solutions — building loyalty in financial markets.

Using blockchain technology, grand prize winners ‘Credibly’ developed a prototype to simplify financial services by reducing paperwork while enabling creditors and loan agents to reduce their risk.

So, instead of requesting documents from a farmer, as the team explained, data can be pulled from suppliers and distributors, and used as a proxy to determine value or credit score that can help lenders or credit agencies when it comes to allowing that person to borrow money.

Noting that 86 per cent of Jamaicans are under-banked, which reduces their access to the full suite of financial services such as loans, Credibly said its app will allow applicants to take photos of their national identification and tax registration number (TRN), and optical character recognition (OCR) will identify the information and use it to facilitate obtaining a loan.

For this innovation, Credibly mustered 290 points and won the blockchain solutions category and was also declared the top team of the competition, copping $100,000 from NCB and $100,000 from IBM.

The other two category winners, each of which walked away with $100,000, were ‘Pocket Advisor’ for next-generation consumer solutions and ‘NCB Goals’ for learning experience solutions.

Pocket Advisor presented a voice recognition chat-bot aimed at boosting customer experiences while reducing the cost of customer service.

The team posited that one of the biggest problems in Jamaica is the lengthy period it takes to access customer service agents and created Pocket Advisor to reduce that time to five minutes.

The very essence of the prototype is the concept of a chat-bot responding immediately, understanding Jamaican dialect, and capable of learning on its own while responding in context. Customers not only stand to benefit, but companies as well, as the developer projected that it could reduce customer care costs from the estimated $738 million to $357 million.

It also boasts the benefit of data mining, as it enables companies to tap in and learn what users/customers are saying, know their browsing habits and optimise this knowledge in a bid to tailor content to suit them.

Meanwhile, NCB Goals created a mobile app concept using AI to analyse and interpret customer savings, income and expenditure to provide and educate them on the best financial services tailored to their needs.

Using AI technology, the app checks the requirements for a loan and cross references it with the user’s banking information, informing them whether or not they qualify for the loan.

Customers can also pre-assign an amount of their income for saving towards short- or long-term goals while the app monitors progress by keeping track of the customer’s spending and suggesting best offers.

It can also increase the bank’s marketing potential by allowing the company to collect data about customers such as interests and provide targeted ads, increase effectiveness on social activities and create customer loyalty.

While the three winners topped the pitches based on the judges’ criteria, one could not walk away from the event without mentioning the “feisty” banking advisor ‘Patsy’, which was created to improve the bank’s customer service offering and promised to boost customer loyalty, using IBM’s Watson technology and NCB’s own information. With Patsy, “the banks who were previously takers are now givers”, according to the developers.

Once logged in, Patsy Banking Advisor appears with one click and provides simple but detailed analysis of the user’s account information and makes recommendations on how to better manage finances.

The developers of this prototype, which was submitted under the education category, believe that Patsy evolves from merely a personal banker and is a “nation builder” as she is not focused on crunching numbers but using the information to guide financial decisions.

Other submissions in the education category included: Asynchronnus, Genesis Evo, Learn AI, Let Us C, and Team Chaos.

For blockchain, the teams included: Credibly, Agrolink, Blockchained, Digital ID, Regi Bloc, and Veriloc.

The category of customer loyalty had the least submissions with Pocket Advisor, Loan Spark and Meal Tag.