Stanbic Bank has supported young talented App developers for a two-day hackathon event at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science (KNUST) in Kumasi.

The event was aimed at empowering and promoting the growing app developer community in Ghana. Hackathons are proving grounds for new ideas and are increasingly becoming tools to stimulate the creative and problem-solving juices of young developers.

Stanbic Bank’s interest in the programme according to Nana Dwemoh Benneh, Head Personal and Business Banking, Stanbic Bank is to encourage innovation among the app developer community to cement the bank’s position as a leading financial service player that is nurturing the digital industry and financial technology ecosystem in Ghana.

Fifteen teams competed in the Hackathon. Norris Boateng and Robert Quainoo, third year Computer Science students at KNUST took home a cash prize of GHC 2,000 for developing a mobile virtual shop that allows retailers and individuals to buy and sell goods.

Jeffery Yaw Owusu- Ansah a student from University of Waterloo in Canada was adjudged Most Promising Developer for creating a peer to peer lending ecosystem via web.

Team Y made up of Nutakor Eldad and Lawrence Adu from KNUST won the Best Idea award for a hostel search and rent mobile app that matches the demand of students to the supply of hostel facilities..

The Best Pitch award went to the Wire and Bytes Team which was made Isaac Sesi, Peter Adu Ohara and Kwaku Tabiri. They developed a delivery service app which enables users to run errands for other people for a commission.

Slydepay, is Stanbic’s latest foray into the digital space. “The Slydepay payment wallet is expected to become the leading payment app in the fast changing payment systems in Ghana,” said Nana Benneh.

“I am sure the developers here today and across the country will be able to further develop many apps that will sit on our Slydepay rails.”

Stanbic Bank hopes to mobilize half of the Ghanaian population to join the digital revolution by using Slydepay as their ultimate means of paying and receiving cash and transacting everywhere they go.

Developed locally in collaboration with Dream Oval, Slydepay can be downloaded for free at Google Play Store and IOS Apps Store and is expected to be the next big thing in Africa.

The Bank’s involvement in the Hackathon was also to further drive the cashless revolution by encouraging the youth to come develop solutions for both web and mobile banking.