In November 2020, OP Financial Group participated in Junction 2020 Connected, a global hackathon bringing together the brightest developer community from all over the world. All in all, OP received 31 different project entries, hundreds of talent contacts and a mind-blowing personalized financial advisor solution, also awarded as the Junction 2020 Connected global winner.
One of the highlights of late 2020 was Junction 2020 Connected, a global hackathon gathering over 1800 participants from 88 countries to develop innovative solutions for real-life challenges from various industries. Over one weekend, teams all around the world hacked their heart out, demonstrating the art of teamwork, quick MVPs and impressive learning curves. Adapted to the prevailing world situation, for the first time the entire event was run fully remote, delivering a new virtual experience to both teams and partners.
Hackathon as Idea Sourcing Platform: Intelligent Financial Advisors and Smart Property Management
For the third time, OP Financial Group participated in the event, this time with two different challenges. In the first challenge, the teams developed a real-time personalized and intelligent financial advisor for the group – where the winning solution also ended up as the Junction 2020 Connected Main Prize winner! Besides addressing a real customer pain, the Saavi app demonstrated an impressive, fun and playful concept of an easy financial health solution with subscription management and AR banking capabilities.
The second challenge, launched in partnership with CGI and Motiva Partners, the teams were in the search of Smart Property Management solutions. The winner, RenoScope convinced the jury with their proactive tool helping real estate agents, buyers, banks and housing company representatives estimate the future property renovation costs.
“As a truly global innovation event, Junction 2020 Connected was a great way to crowdsource idea harvesting to the brightest minds from all over the world. It’s simply incredible to witness what brilliant teams can achieve in only 48 hours”, says Kristian Luoma, Head of Innovation and IPR at OP Financial Group.
Discovering Future Talent at a Global Setup
Besides providing event partners fresh ideas and concepts, Junction 2020 served as a concentration of world-class talent. Despite the fully remote setup, participants and teams managed to actively reach out to both OP mentors and recruiters. For the OP recruiting team, the busy weekend resulted in hundreds of visits at the OP Financial Group virtual booth and a stream of follow-up conversations about career opportunities at OP Financial Group.
“From talent acquisition perspective, Junction 2020 Connected was definitely a success. We believe that in order to find the best talent for the future, we also have to look beyond geographical borders. Besides getting a high-level perspective on the young talent out there, these events have resulted in direct recruits and discovery of amazing talent over the years”, summarizes
