Make it Mobile - RBC Digital Challenge
What is the Make it Mobile – RBC Digital Challenge?
Imagine the future of mobile banking, a future where people’s everyday financial activities blend completely with the native functionality of their mobile devices.
We’re RBC – Canada’s largest bank by market capitalization – and we want that future today.
So we’re inviting the most visionary – and driven – developers, designers and entrepreneurs to compete over 24 hours in the creation of brilliant pieces of new mobile banking technology.
The Future of Banking
Mobile technologies are transforming the way people engage with their finances. They’re paying for things, borrowing money, and managing accounts across a range of tiny interactions, multiple locations and varying spans of time.
But that’s nothing compared with the ways in which people interact with their phones’ native technologies. Cameras, Bluetooth, geo-location, accelerometers, NFC: people know them so well that they don’t even think of them as separate items. So how do we use those familiar tools to push their mobile banking habits even further into the future? How do we turn their hum-drum experiences of daily finances into something exciting?
What is the Challenge?
We’ll ask every participant to build on those native features and what we know about people’s mobile behaviors. Use ANY mobile device* and ANY of its features to create the next great leap in the way people engage with their financial world.
If your idea is functional, adoptable and really fresh, it could become a piece of our next mobile technology release. Your brilliance can actually change the way people think about their money.
*We ask attendees to bring their own developer phones or emulators so that they can demo their projects.
What are the Prizes?
We recognize success at the RBC Digital Challenge. We reward it, too.
We’ll award at least $8,000 in total to the winning teams (up to five of them). And just to keep spirits high over the long haul, we’ll also be giving away door prizes and freebies. Register early so you don’t miss out.
Grand Prize: $5,000 for the team
2nd Place: $2,000 for the team
3rd Place: $1,000 for the team
4th Place: $500 for the team
5th Place: $100 for the team
Schedule
The Make It Mobile – RBC Digital Challenge will be held Saturday-Sunday, November 7th-8th at RBC WaterPark Place Auditorium (88 Queen’s Quay West, Toronto, Ontario). Although staying overnight isn’t required, we highly recommend it.
Saturday, November 7th
09:00 am – Doors Open, Breakfast and registration
10:30 am – Opening Ceremony & Presentations
11:30 am – Coding Begins
12:00 pm – Lunch
06:00 pm – Dinner
12:00 am – Midnight Snack
Sunday, November 8th
7:00 am – Breakfast
11:30 am – Submission Deadline
12:00 pm – Lunch
02:00 pm – Judging
04:00 pm – Awards
05:00 pm – Closing
Judging Criteria
- Simplicity (5 points): Is the application simple to use and can the team explain it clearly in three sentences or less?
- Creativity (5 points): How creative was the team in developing an innovative solution for the challenge?
- Impact (5 points): Did the team create an application that can have a real and valuable impact?
- Design (5 points): Was the UX/UI intuitive and appealing?
Team Size: Each team can include up to five humans. Each team can be comprised of no more than half of RBC Employees.
Fresh Code Enforced: We all start coding at the same time. This is done to keep things fair. Please don’t come in and build on top of previous projects if you want to win.
No PowerPoints: You must demo your hack in order to present. No slide-decks or power-points will be allowed. 2 minute presentation 1 minute Q&A from Judges
Submissions: Each hackathon has its individual hackathon.io page, which projects should be submitted on. Submission time is 12:00pm Sunday, November 8th, 2015 unless stated otherwise.
Code Review: Winning teams will be subject to a code-review at some point following the event or immediately before winning.
Please click here for the Participation Agreement