Developer shortage
There is a huge demand for software developers everywhere. Unfortunately, the industry and academia are not doing enough to keep up with the growing demand - tertiary institutions are expensive and teach a lot of unnecessary skills, while the public perception is that software development is limited to uber-talented intellectuals.
Rehive believes that the industry can do more to create a healthy developer and entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Rehive Challenge
Rehive was founded by students directly out of university in 2015. The team had the privilege to move to Silicon Valley where they got a taste of a thriving community of innovators, developers and entrepreneurs that are fueled by industry-sponsored hackathons, workshops and meetups.
“We want to bring the culture of openly sharing knowledge and expertise to South Africa. At any hackathon gathering in San Francisco, you’ll find experts and newbies in the same room that are working together on projects or sharing ideas.”
Rehive is launching the Fintech Challenge with over $100k in prize money. The challenge will consist of a series of pop up hackathons and workshops hosted by the Rehive team in partnership with external partners and sponsors. The first official popup hackathon is sponsored and co-hosted by Flash in Cape Town on 24 March.
The Fintech Challenge will run throughout 2018. There will be prize money at each popup hackathon, but the grand prizes will be reserved for teams that have launched and achieved early market traction. The goal is to encourage participants to go beyond just a prototype and think about what they are building and why.
Why fintech and blockchain?
2018 is the year that fintech disruption will take off like a wildfire.
The emergence of the internet disrupted the way people access information and communicate. Today the advent of open banking, blockchain technology and favourable regulations like PSD 2 (in UK/EU) are levelling the playing field for more competition to deliver real value added financial products that were previously limited to banks and giant corporations.
“Fintech solutions intersects with all industries, whether retail, banking, government, insurance, travel and so on. If a nineteen-year-old could build Facebook that today impacts billions of people, why shouldn’t we expect the same kind of innovation to disrupt finance? Above all, fintech is a powerful means for solving economic inequality.” says Helghardt Avenant, co-founder of Rehive.
Upcoming fintech and blockchain hackathons
Stellar Build Challenge is a global blockchain challenge whereby winners are awarded in Stellar Lumens. Winners are announced every quarter. The next deadline is 15 March.
Rehive/Flash popup hackathon is 24 March.
Contact Rehive if you’re interested in co-hosting a fintech event in your city.