Hackathon
Dunne
An online programme helping school children learn to manage their money was the winning project in the Creative Minds Hackathon in DCU Ryan Academy on Sunday.
The task posed in the hackathon was to ‘create a social innovation product or service that will improve the lives of young people’.
The winning group – Educa$hion – beat fourteen other teams and 120 other students in the three day event that took place last weekend.
The winning idea was an online platform aimed at children aged between 11 and 16 that sets them up with a bank account and helps them learn money management skills in various ways, for example by setting saving goals and imposing maximum transaction limits.
A member of the winning team, Marcio Camargo, said that the group identified the problem of money management for students in college as their issue, and that the platform would help solve “the problem at its root”.
“We want to educate people to be more sensible spenders”, said Camargo, who also said that the group will continue working together and that the service would now be presented to banks, after positive initial feedback from parents.
Some of the other projects included modular apartments for students, an online platform to help young people choose a third-level course, and a system to help lawyers representing LGBT asylum seekers.
One of the hackathon’s aims was to strengthen cross-border dialogue in entrepreneurship, and it featured students studying in Ireland and the USA, and students from countries such as Brazil and South Africa took part.
Alex Dunne
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