Here are the winners of the Re:Code Nigeria Hackathon

Last weekend, the Re:Code Nigeria hackathon went into full swing.

The mission was to develop solutions and value added services, to improve the customer experience in the banking sector in Africa. A group of stakeholders partnered to host this event. They include Access bank, Flutterwave, IBM, Microsoft, Devcenter and a host of others.

17 teams created several applications and services to further bridge the gap between customers and banking services. They slugged it out for 48 hours and 3 teams emerged winners.

The winning team created an app that allows customers carry out banking transactions via voice. Customers simply need to tap a button, speak into the application and tell it what transaction they want to carry out. For example, a bank transfer can be initiated by tapping a button and making a request for the service. The same also goes for checking account balance, and recharging phone credit. The team dubbed this app ‘VoiceIt’

The second place team created a smart payment bot that helps bank customers make payments and access financial advice very easily. It also helps create a customer profile by detailing their spending habits.

This in turn, informs the bank when the customer wants to take a loan, and helps make better financial decisions based on their spending habits. This application was from the Paysense team, and the bot was nicknamed Victor.

The third place team created a financial assistance tool, to help users manage money, track expenses, and make payments. All these transactions can be done in whichever messenger the user chooses — Facebook Messenger, SMS, or Slack. The app was called ‘Fissit’.

The event was graced by top industry leaders who gave the team guidance through the hackathon. Herbert Wigwe, the Group Managing Director of Access Bank, Shina Oyetosho of Microsoft Nigeria, Joseph Sam of IBM West Africa and Tokunbo Fagbamigbe of Cotta Cush were some of the in attendance.

The winners got prize money of ₦1.5 million, ₦1 million and ₦500,000 respectively. They will also get 6 months access to IBM Bluemix including APIs that gives them access to the Watson supercomputer. From Microsoft, they got 1 month free usage of Azure and MSDN.