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It was a festive-like atmosphere at the Arcapita Building on the afternoon of May 15 as the three winners of the first FinTech for Sustainability hackathon was felicitated by BENEFIT, the principal partner of the event, along with The Manama Hub of the Global Shapers Community.

For those out of the loop, the month-long hackathon kicked off in March before successfully wrapping up last month. It was organized by Bahrain FinTech Bay along with a number of its knowledge partners throughout the Kingdom to discover young and rising talent with the skill set to contribute to the Kingdom’s growing economy.

Students representing various universities from across the country participated in the prestigious competitions. Six teams worked on six unique innovative solutions aimed at catering to 10 Sustainable Development Goals. They were mentored by various eminent entrepreneurs throughout the month-long event.

The top-three teams felicitated earlier in the week include:

  • Sprive, for their innovative solution that empowers the unbanked and under-banked sections of the society to benefit from investment opportunities using a smart app.

  • Beam secured the second spot for their holistic solutions that enables users to track and manage their electricity consumption habits. Additionally, their solution also makes it easier for consumers to pay electricity bills and gain access to other facilities.

  • On the third spot was DonateTech, which created the country’s first cashless cryptocurrency-based philanthropy platform.

Yousif Alnefaiei, the acting CEO at BENEFIT, underscored the importance of the hackathon by saying: “This initiative was an impactful journey for our students – they have taken away key lessons and achieved a great milestone. The ideas we witnessed were creative, innovative and addressed the SDGs in a clever manner. We hope they can go forward with these solutions, or have this experience push them to do more in this space. The youth has the utmost capabilities and will continue to provide them platforms to excel.”