Absa Bank Botswana Hackathon

1. Why is Absa hosting a hackathon this year? What is the objective behind it?

The Absa Bank Botswana Hackathon is part of a Hackathon and Incubation programme that aims to assist and encourage aspiring young Batswana developers to enter into the tech entrepreneurship space, more specifically the Fintech industry. The programme also aims to address some of the challenges faced by the SME farmers especially in the face of Covid-19. The programme is designed such that by the end, the top teams will have fully functioning businesses or entities with deployed solutions in the market. The main objective is to aid them in the early stages of being tech entrepreneurs.

2.How will the developers who participate benefit?

The developers will have a chance to undergo business skills and entrepreneurship training valued at over BWP100 000 from engaged vendors and Absa. This training will be specific to technology start-ups to help them understand the different aspects required to not only start a business but to maintain one as well. We emphasis this because we know being able to develop applications and systems is not sufficient in initiating and ensuring a successful business; skills such as writing business proposals, finance and accounting, creating business value propositions, customer service, sales, business mindset and acumen etc. are all essential in running a start-up. They will receive mentorships and training from local parastatals we have partnered with on the programme. They will be provided with access to tools and platforms to enable technical upskilling. They will be provided with hardware and software resources required to further develop their solutions. They will have a chance to deploy the solutions to the farmers clientele as the first clientele in their business portfolio in addition to having a maintenance and support contract for the deployed solutions with Absa. They will have access and network to a large client base for any other solutions their business goes on to develop.

3. Are there any in-person components of this event?

The Hackathon is the first to take place entirely online. There are no in-person meetings, and no travel is required.

4. Is there any technology restriction?

No, you can build with any technology that you’re familiar with. However, submissions that can rapidly deploy and scale-up will be given greater consideration. For this reason, products that effectively integrate with or are built on top of existing platforms and tools may be preferred over products that attempt to "reinvent the wheel.“

5. Does my entry have to be a new app?

Yes. You may start building your app only after the start of the Hackathon. You may make use of pre-existing platforms or APIs for specific functions of your app provided that your submission to the App, Challenge provides a novel and significantly different functionality than what is provided by the basic platform or API.

6. Are teams restricted to six members only?

Yes, teams are capped at six members.

7. Is this event restricted to developers only?

Teams may include developers, designers, marketers, data scientists, and/or anyone else who can help you build a great app. However, since this is ultimately a software development competition, successful teams will have enough engineering and design talent to ensure a high-quality final product and not just a great pitch.

8. Do pitches and videos have to be in English?

Yes, all pitches to the judges must be made in English. Videos in other languages must be subtitled in English.

9. How do I form or find a team?

You are encouraged to form your team of three to six people in advance of the challenge and participate in the event together. You and your teammates will register individually then form a team within the platform. If you register as an individual, you may be matched with other like-minded applicants before the challenge officially starts.

10. Do I need to pay any money to register for the Hackathon?

No. You do not have to pay anything to anyone to register yourself for the Hackathon.

11. Who will own the IP (Intellectual Property) Rights to the products built?

Absa Bank Botswana will have all rights and own the IP of materials and products built during this hackathon.