The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) recently announced the winners of its first hackathon, which aims to promote entrepreneurship and innovation among South African youth African youth.
The winning team, Tech Busters, dominated the competition and took home R20 000. They have also been given the opportunity to work with FSCA’s ICT department to further develop their winning idea.
“We built a smartphone game that will make entrepreneurship entertaining and simpler for individuals who need help starting a business and those who are already running Small Medium and Micro Enterprises ( SMMEs ) and are stuck and need direction. We want to empower SMMEs and aspiring entrepreneurs with the proper kind of tools. We are thrilled to build our winning concept in collaboration with the FSCA,” says Ndiimanae Rabuli, Team
Leader of Tech Busters.
The virtual hackathon involved 150 young people aged 18 to 35 who worked together to develop a web-based game that encourages small and medium enterprises to start and grow their businesses.
50 young innovative finalists from across South Africa from various STEM and business sectors were then shortlisted to test their ability to use well-researched consumer financial education material to create an interactive and educational game for a wide target audience.
Lyndwill Clarke, Head of Consumer Education at FSCA, says: “We are proud to see what SA youth are capable of achieving when given the opportunity. All the finalists demonstrated creativity and innovation throughout the hackathon. We look forward to developing the winning idea into an engaging and informative game that will assist SMME’s and aspirant entrepreneurs to establish and sustain their businesses to their benefit and to
that of the South African economy.”
