Worldpay launches IoT hackathon
Impact Hub Westminster in central London
Global payments provider Worldpay has teamed up with Consult Hyperion, MongoDB and Visa Europe Collab to host its first internet of things (IoT) hackathon in London in September.
The event aims to foster innovation and encourage participants to apply technology to integrating payments. Two themes will flow through the 48-hour hackathon – the “Smart City” and the connected home.
Nick Telford-Reed, Worldpay director of technology innovation, says it will be its “first ever London hackathon” and to meet the needs of consumers and the industry it is “vital to get collaboration between a wide variety of organisations”.
Worldpay says the hackathon provides an opportunity for aspiring technologists as well as experienced coders to develop a proof-of-concept (POC) for mobile to mobile payment and to be trained on new IoT open-source technology using the latest industry software and hardware. Participants can also bring their own kit to build real-life payment situations between objects.
The hackathon will take place at the Impact Hub Westminster in central London on 23-25 September. First prize is £3,000, while the runner-up gets £2,000.
An online platform will be available two weeks prior to the hackathon where one-on-one sessions can be booked with technology experts.
By the way…
In a separate development, Berlin-based Raisin recently organised its first hackathon to explore the mobile framework “React Native”.
It says more than 20 hackers from both inside and outside the company met to gather ideas and build an app within 12 hours. Three interdisciplinary teams were formed and challenged in different fields including user experience, data processing and performance, as well as employing mobile hardware.
The apps created included one that reflected the Raisin platform called “Raisin Offer Finder”. However, an app for organising lunches within a company titled “LunchBuddy” was the eventual winner.
