Judging Process and Criteria

Judging process and criteria

Judging process

  1. Interledger CTO, Alex Lakatos, will chat with each team during the hackathon to learn more about your solution. 
  2. Everyone will submit their code by 9am (20th October) for a code review by the Interledger tech team. This is to assess the technical component of your solution (see code review criteria). 
  3. You can still work on your code and make further submits until 10.30am.
  4. At 10.30am (20 October) everyone will submit their final solution (no more building). 
  5. Alex will then announce the 20 teams that have been shortlisted to present to the judges and are eligible to receive 1st (R90 000), 2nd (R50 000) or 3rd prize(R20 000). 
  6. Following the presentations, the judges will select the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize winners (see judging criteria below). 
  7. The teams not selected for presentation will still be eligible for the community prize (R15 000). An audience vote will determine the winner of the community prize.

 

Judging criteria

Out of 20 points

[5 points] Quality of the idea: 

  • Creativity and innovation: How creative and innovative is the idea? [5 points]

[5 points] Potential strategic impact: 

  • Value and usefulness: How does the idea and solution show potential value and usefulness to real-world users? [5 points]

[10 points] Implementation of the idea:

  • Technical implementation: How well did you present and demonstrate the technical solution you built [5 points]
  • User experience: How well was the user experience considered? [5 points]

 

Code review criteria

Out of 11 points

  • Disqualifiers: 
    • Was all code committed within the hackathon hours? 
      • Template code is allowed
      • Whole projects as first commit are not allowed
    • Are the Open Payments APIs used?
  • [1 point] Code quality:
    • Is the project well-structured and organised?
  • [7 points] Complexity:
    • Does the code demonstrate an appropriate level of complexity or cleverness?
      • How complex is the use of the Open Payments APIs?
      • Is there other interesting tech used?
  • [3 points] Functionality:
    • Does the code work as intended?
      • Is there a README that includes the steps to run?
      • Does it build? (points are given for scripting languages)
      • Does it run?

 

Judges

Timea Nagy

Timea Nagy
Timea is an experienced engineering manager and software developer at Interledger with a passion for developing frontends and great user experiences. Together with her team, she built the Interledger Tesnet testing network, which helps users better understand the possibilities of Open Payments. She holds an MSc in Computer Software Engineering from Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania) and her flex is that she has travelled to all 7 continents of the world.

Allan Davids

Allan Davids
Dr. Allan Davids is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town and until 2023, held the South African Reserve Bank Research Chair in Financial Stability Studies. Allan holds a PhD in Economics from UCT and his research spans topics from housing, household finance, and public finance, with a growing interest in climate finance. At UCT, Allan teaches public finance and econometrics and also convenes the Masters in Financial Technology, the first Master’s degree specialising in Financial Technology on the African continent.

Michael Mbuthia

Michael Mbuthia
Michael is a financial services professional with 15+ years of executive-level experience. He previously served as Regional Director for AfricaNenda, Project Lead for Rwanda National Digital Payments Platform, CIO and CEO for Pesalink (Kenya Bankers Association Real-time Payment Platform) and Head of IT Risk and Controls for Co-Operative Bank of Kenya. He holds an MBA from United States International University and an MSc. in Information Technology (IT) from the University of Nairobi. Michael is currently undertaking a PhD in IT at UCT and is a prolific speaker and leader in tech forums across Africa. He is passionate about youth coaching and mentorship.

Sandheep Ramluckan

Sandheep Ramluckan
Sandheep is a specialist in digital innovation and a founder, offering consultancy and advisory services focused on the research and development of Gen-AI, Fintech, and Health-tech innovations. He previously founded and led STARTUP 90, a business accelerator that supports high-growth companies using digital technologies to address social and economic challenges across Africa. In addition, Sandheep served as a lecturer in the MBA program at Stellenbosch Business School. He holds a PhD in Cognitive and Behavioural Entrepreneurship, as well as an MPhil in Development Finance, Technology, and Business Incubation from the University of Stellenbosch.

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