On Thursday morning, 50 students at the Minneapolis Community & Technical College kicked off a hackathon to design an application that would help students be successful in managing their money.
The two-day event is sponsored by U.S. Bancorp and serves as a way for the bank to tap into a pipeline of young and diverse talent as it currently has 800 open technology jobs. (28% of the hackathon participants are women while 50% are minorities).
After a nonstop coding session Thursday, teams on Friday will pitch their project to a team of judges from U.S. Bank, IBM, Brooksource and college faculty. The projects are judged based on their simplicity, creativity, impact and design.
Stephanie Hammes-Betti, senior vice president, systems and digital Risk said the event is an opportunity for students and the bank to build a relationship and learn from each other.
“This is such a great way for corporations to get in and learn and really think about how we can help bridge the gap,” Hammes-Betti said. “And so much of it is about is just learning in other people's contexts and sort of getting that moment to interact.”
The five-person teams consist of not just coders, but students studying business, art and graphic design.
Daniel Obot, a senior software engineer at U.S. Bank and hackathon mentor, said the format allows the students to collaborate on bringing a range of ideas and experiences into their project.
Obot enjoyed mentoring at the inaugural hackathon in 2019 so much, that he turned it into a job teaching a coding class at the college.
Heading into this year’s hackathon, Obot is excited to help the students work through problems until they hit an “aha” moment.
“Their skill improves greatly they're able to think through a problem on their own and actually able to help their peers as well,” Obot said.
