BBVA challenges developers to create the best apps based on transaction data from Mexico
Developers from around the world can pre-register for BBVA’s second “hackathon”. The participants will have access to anonymous, statistical, and irreversibly dissociated data from Mexico’s three largest cities: Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.
InnovaChallenge MX will give away 60,000 euros in prize money to the most creative uses of BBVA’s data in combination with other sources BBVA is one of the first banks in the financial industry to publicly share its data, which will be available through bbvaopen4u.com.
BBVA, which takes great care to anonymize the data, is one of the few banks in the world to start opening its data to third parties through hackathons.
“InnovaChallenge MX is designed to help us envision ways to use our data, integrating and mixing it with external sources of information,” said Gustavo Vinacua, head of BBVA’s Innovation Centers and Open Innovation.
Vinacua said last year’s hackathon, InnovaChallenge, generated more than 140 applications from 19 countries. He also noted that the amount of data made available to developers last year was significantly less than InnovaChallenge MX’s data trove, which covers commercial activity in the three of the largest Mexican cities over a six-month period.
InnovaChallenge MX opened for pre-registration on October 6. The API will be available on October 20. The deadline to submit applications is December 1.
Awards and categories
InnovaChallenge MX is going to award the most creative uses of BBVA’s data and the ways in which they are combined with other sources of information. It has two award categories: applications for consumers and applications for businesses. Each category comes with three prizes: 15,000 euros for the winner; 10,000 euros for second place; and 5,000 euros for third place.
InnovaChallenge MX is more than the contest: It also includes an agenda full of events, workshops and seminars, both in person and online, in Spain, Mexico and the United States. More information about InnovaChallenge MX can be found on BBVA’s webpage devoted to open innovation, bbvaopen4u.com.