PayPal opens registrations for Opportunity Hack 2016

PayPal has opened registrations for the third edition of its annual two-day Opportunity Hack. The hackathon will be open to NGOs focusing on the economic empowerment of underprivileged sections of society and developers interested in creating tech-based solutions for challenges faced by these non-profit organizations.

A global program, Opportunity Hack is already a key community initiative for PayPal in San Jose, California and Chandler, Arizona. Introduced in India in 2014, PayPal’s employee base in the country of over 1,200 highly skilled technologists has been an integral part of the initiative. In 2015, nearly 240 developers clocked about 8,600 hours to help 26 NGOs develop technology-based prototypes to solve real-world challenges.

“As a technology leader, we at PayPal strongly believe that the right technological intervention has the power to facilitate social change and create a sustainable impact in the community. Opportunity Hack is a great platform for us to leverage our greatest strength – our vast base of enthusiastic, expert technologists and use their skills to help bring to life executable, result-oriented solutions for key on-ground challenges faced by NGOs across the country. The hackathon also focuses on engaging our wider tech community by bringing together developers to work with the non-profits and PayPal technologists,” says Guru Bhat, General Manager, Chennai and Bengaluru, Technology Centers.

The previous editions of the Opportunity Hack in India have seen path-breaking solutions, including:

· A mobile app for volunteer management for the Blue Cross of India to further enhance the capability to report animals in distress and ambulance support requests for animals

· An SMS-based intervention system for alcohol addiction in collaboration with TTK Hospitals that has the capability to track problems reported by patients or their families for early intervention

· A volunteer and sensor onboarding solution to seamlessly integrate Sensors Without Borders’ platform, which captures metadata from sensors embedded with a range of community-oriented stakeholders, including schools, nonprofits and state agencies

Guru further added, “Based on PayPal’s overall mission of transforming money and becoming an everyday part of people’s financial lives, the theme for Opportunity Hack 2016 is Economic Empowerment. The hackathon will focus on enabling solutions for projects that address critical issues such as Financial Literacy, Entrepreneurship Development, Microfinancing as well as Higher Education and Livelihood Enhancement, among others.”

During the hackathon, teams that develop the most innovative and impactful solutions will be awarded prizes totaling Rs. 2,10,000. The winning non-profit organizations will also receive vouchers for an additional Rs. 30,000 to support their community initiatives.

The Opportunity Hack 2016 will be held at PayPal’s world-class Global Technology Product Center in Sholinganallur, Chennai on November 12th and 13th 2016.