Aareal Bank Group took part in Bankathon 2016
Nine colleagues, three teams, one goal: 30 hours programming. At a time. The Betahaus is a hive of activity on October 10. The co-working space at the edge of the Schanzenviertel in Hamburg is well attended. Usually, employees of start-up companies are working on their ideas at their desks here, but today there are coders doing programming work within the context of Bankathon 2016.
Aareal Bank Group took part with three teams. Five minutes before the official starting signal the mood was tense. Everyone seems to have his own ritual when it comes to getting mentally prepared for the next 30 hours. READY, STEADY, GO: "Coding Begins, good luck to everyone!“ Immediately after the official command the teams start working: they discuss, make drawings and type source codes.
Holger Spielberg, Group Technology Officer of Aareal Bank Group, is very satisfied with the event: "It was exactly this dynamic environment that we had wished to come across at the Bankathon. Now our teams can show how much competence Aareal Bank has got."
The sun is slowly setting over Hamburg, but in the "hacking room" where the PCs are installed nobody is interested in the surroundings. All of the 21 teams are still there, working with untiring commitment. Each of the Aareal Bank Group teams is working on a different solution: one targets shopping mall operators, another one the owners of shops within such malls. And the third solution called "OnetouchCashManagement" provides a new approach to payment transactions.
The time will be up at 03:00 p.m. on October 11 – the end of Bankathon 2016. At 05:00 p.m., the participants meet for the pitches: short presentations of four minutes each, in which the teams present their approaches.
The Betahaus is filled to capacity. In addition to the almost 100 coders, several hundreds of further guests have arrived who don't want to miss out on the ideas and developments. Late on this Tuesday evening, the winning teams are announced. Although Aareal Bank Group has not made it to the Top 3 this time, the participants are still happy: "We had lots of fun here in Hamburg, we made contacts and learned a lot of new things" Gösta Kroll, from the "Tenant/Shop" team summarises the time spent at the Betahaus. And Daniel Höfelmann, Head of Innovation at Aareal Bank Group, adds: "Our teams worked really hard, and they promoted their ideas very successfully, despite the tremendous time pressure. I'm very enthusiastic and hope that we will be able to bring along the spirit of the last days to Wiesbaden and Mainz."
The Bankathon took place in Hamburg from 9 to 11 October. In the course of this fintech event in Hamburg the participants developed bank-specific software. As one of the sponsors, Aareal Bank Group put together its own teams who took on a specific challenge or task in a pre-defined time span of 30 hours. There were employees of Aareal Bank AG and Aareal First Financial Solutions AG involved in the Bankathon and its preparation.
