Data enthusiats, finance experts, computer programmers and coders, researchers and tech fanatics are meeting to showcase innovative solutions that will help achieve universal access to financial services.
Data-Hack for Financial Inclusion is a competition that seeks to award innovators of practical solutions aimed at helping businesses and financial-service providers take their services to the poor and those who cannot access such services.
Competitions motivate innovators to research and come up with ideas. They also attract solutions-developers who would otherwise have kept their ideas to themselves. Data-Hack for Financial Inclusion (DataHack4FI) focuses on Africa. There are six country-level competitions namely; Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The final will be held in Rwanda in May.
The Kenyan leg of DataHack4FI is being hosted by Nairobi Garage, which is a serviced work space for startups. Such an environment is conducive for the collaboration and mentorship that goes with innovation in the tech world.
The World Bank estimates that about 2 billion working-age adults globally have no access to the
types of formal financial services delivered by regulated financial
institutions. Sub-Saharan Africa is worse with only 24% of adults having a bank account. Data-Hack for Financial Inclusion is an initiative that seeks to reverse this.
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