PayPal Awards $100,000 Battle Hack Prize to Team Moscow for Donate Now App
PayPal, the service that allows people to send payments without sharing financial information, announced the $100,000 grand-prize winner of its Battle Hack Series, a global hackathon competition. The two-day Battle Hack World Finals took place at the PayPal Headquarters in San Jose and hosted 10 teams of developers from across the globe.
Each team had to win a regional PayPal Battle Hack competition to qualify for the finale. At the event, competitors were tasked with building an application that incorporated the PayPal API and benefited the community in some way.
Donate Now uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology and PayPal to allow anyone to instantly donate to a cause in the moment without filling in lengthy forms right from their mobile devices, whenever and wherever they see an opportunity for giving in their daily lives. The team consisted of four members: Sergey Pronin, Alexander Balaban ( both are the HSE School of Software Engineering students), Bayram Annakov, and Oksana Tretiakova.The $100,000 grand prize was awarded to the team from Moscow who created an app called Donate Now. Second place went to team Tel Aviv (Dañny Leshém, Yaniv Ben Zaken, Maya Marom and Yoav Amit) for RunPal, an app that connects users with other runners around the world to encourage them to get running. And, third place went to team Miami (Alexander Sjögren, Jose Pimienta and Osniel Gonzalez) for LoanPal, a peer-to-peer lending service.
— We’re thrilled to share that the awesome team from Moscow has won $100,000 for its innovative Donate Now app,- said John Lunn, Global Director of PayPal’s Developer Network. -We truly believe that developers can help change the world. The goal of our Battle Hack program is to find the best and brightest developers across the globe that could do just that. The response from our inaugural Battle Hack competition has been overwhelming, with several cities selling out and bringing talented hackers.
The PayPal Battle Hack Series launched in May 2013 and hosted regional hackathons in 10 cities worldwide. Prior to the finale event in San Jose, California, PayPal hosted regional competitions in Berlin, New York City, Tel Aviv, Seattle, Miami, Moscow, Austin, London,Washington, D.C., and Barcelona. Each winning team then traveled (all flight and hotel expenses paid) to San Jose to compete in PayPal’s Battle Hack World Finals. Throughout the Battle Hack Series each team was judged based the quality of the idea, execution and innovation, and the overall user experience of the app.
— People love helping others in need, but there are so many obstacles that can make it hard to donate, said the winners of both Battle Hack Moscow and the World Finals. - The commitment to great developer tools and the attention we received from PayPal’s evangelists and mentors throughout the competition gave us a unique opportunity to showcase what we do every day—build terrific applications to solve pressing problems.
The 24-hour competition created 10 new apps, ranging from a seasonal payroll system and real-time peer loans for the under-banked, to ways for food trucks to quickly expand service locations with pledges from customers. The PayPal Battle Hack World Finals judges included: John Lunn; David Marcus, President of PayPal; Isaac Saldana, President of SendGrid; Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio; Aunkur Arya, Braintree General Manager of Mobile; and Sarah Austin, Stremor Chief Product Officer.