Development News South Africa

Fintech hackathon winner to walk away with R62k

Online accounting software company, Xero, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services, has kicked off a national developer technology challenge with an aim to accelerate South Africa's growing fintech industry.
Gary Turner
Gary Turner

The virtual hackathon will enable the region’s technology entrepreneurs to compete with other forward-thinking developers on a global scale. To take part, they need to develop an app that can sit within the company’s global ecosystem of over 600 apps.

The winner will receive R62,720 and the opportunity to attend and exhibit their app at Xerocon, a conference for accountants and bookkeepers, taking place in London in November.

“Since Xero first set foot in South Africa, I’ve been really impressed by the strong entrepreneurial spirit amongst the small business community. It’s really important that they are supported in the right way; and given space to pursue their best ideas and to grow. That’s why it’s time to open up our global developer competition to a South African audience. Those that have won it elsewhere have instantly been able to propel their business, and compete at a global scale,” said Gary Turner, managing director, Xero EMEA.

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