Myanmar Tech Community Hacked for Good to find Digital Solutions to Promote Financial Literacy Led by Yoma Bank, Oracle, and Phandeeyar

Mar 12, 2019

Yangon, Myanmar – March 12, 2019 – A 48-hour Financial Literacy hackathon, FinLit Hackathon*, which aimed to improve Myanmar’s financial literacy, took place in Yangon from March 8th to 10th. Yoma Bank, Oracle, and Phandeeyar partnered to bring the emerging tech-and civil society community together in order to create tangible tech solutions fostering financial literacy in Myanmar. As the problem statement of the hackathon, the teams developed applications, web based services, and chatbots to educate the people of Myanmar from all walks of life on making informed and effective decisions when it comes to their financial resources. There was a total of twenty-one teams, ninety participants, that competed in the hackathon. ACE, won the first prize with Piggy Bank App, that teaches children financial literacy in a fun, interactive, and incentivized way. ACE took home cash price of $1,000 USD and the opportunity to attend Oracle OpenWorld Asia, Singapore from 26-27 March 2019**. As a runner up, Brainy Is the New Sexy won the judges over with their new Sagar App that teaches young adults about financial literacy in a story led gamified interactive approach.

The key objective of the FinLit Hackathon is to create digital solutions to educate financial literacy in youth, urban, rural, or older demographics. Many people in Myanmar are still not comfortable with financial institutions and this is due in part to the lack of financial literacy. This remains one of Myanmar’s most pressing challenges – a challenge that digital solutions are uniquely positioned to solve. “Improving financial literacy at scale is key to accelerating the development of Myanmar’s economy. At Yoma Bank, we can help Myanmar better access and participate in the Country’s financial system. Today, we are excited to partner with Oracle and Phandeeyar to launch the first FinLit Hackathon and look forward to exploring innovative solutions with Myanmar’s entrepreneurial tech community,” said Hal Bosher, Chief Executive Officer, Yoma Bank.

Three weeks prior to the actual hackathon, weekly public information workshop series took place to inform and educate the community led by Yoma Bank, Oracle, and Phandeeyar. During the workshops, not only the hackathon participants attended, people within the community, who are interested in financial literacy attended the sessions.

“Financial literacy is a skill that enables us to better manage our money, allowing us to anticipate problems and reach our goals. In this hackathon, Yoma Bank, Oracle, and Phandeeyar will gather the tech community to build digital solutions for empowering people in Myanmar to increase their capacity of handling their finance and, ultimately, live better lives”, said João Dutra (Kyaw Aung), Accelerator Director at Phandeeyar.

The applications were built on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure during the hackathon. “Oracle is proud to be the technology partner of the FinLit Hackathon as part of our overall commitment to the fintech community to promote financial literacy in Myanmar. As a leading cloud industry player, we are excited to contribute to this landmark event. These series of workshops and hackathon effectively showcase the power of Oracle’s next gen cloud infrastructure and we look forward to future collaboration opportunities with the fintech community in Myanmar,” said Cherian Varghese, Regional Managing Director, ASEAN.

*This event neither promotes nor permits coding activities designed to circumvent security functionality or exploit software vulnerabilities.

**Flight from Yangon to Singapore provided, along with two nights stay at hotel in Singapore is sponsored by Yoma Bank. **